


Phoenix

by The Primera Haruoka (TenshiEren14)



Series: A Tale a Millennium in the Making [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: #ProtectFuri2k17, Akashi will have his revenge, Alpha/Beta/Ultima Dynamics, And Hyuuga, And Kiyoshi, Aomine and Kuroko are brothers, As modern as I'll ever get, Best Friend Shige, F/M, Family Fluff, Fantasy elements, Furihata has a backbone and is not afraid to use it, Happy Reading~, Immortal GOM, Jailbreak Fic, Kise's Kuroko's brother too, Kuroko the lil shit, M/M, Manipulative! GoM, Modern (kinda) AU!, More tags to be added, Nightmare magic, Poor Furihata, Shige the lil shit, Shigehiro is best bro, So are Akashi and Kagami, or something resembling that, romance fluff, this he swears
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-22 01:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 38,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7412893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenshiEren14/pseuds/The%20Primera%20Haruoka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And out of the ashes, we will rise. Better, stronger, brighter than ever before and humanity will fear our wrath."</p><p>Alternatively, Furihata is nice and accidentally starts the apocalypse. Tetsuya says thanks for the sandwich, by the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. World's First Dancehall

**Author's Note:**

> I often have to ask myself why I put myself through these things, then I realize I just like building worlds from scratch and then throwing them into woodchoppers before adding my favorite cast of characters into the mix. I’m planning to work on both this and VoF for the summer break and even though I won’t have as much free time as I’d like (Next year’s finals are going to be a pain and a half) I figured I’d at least start this thing up.
> 
> This cute little piece of work actually stemmed from me wanting to write Akashi as the world’s overlord, so.. well, do with that what you may, haha.
> 
> Disclaimer: Um, no, still don’t have the rights to this.

It was a warm day in spring when Furihata Kouki got a call from his boss telling him that he’d been promoted.

The mousy, brown haired man led a simple life. He finished college with a doctorate in psychology and had been drafted to a few mental hospitals where he used his talents to foster more than a couple patients back to acceptable health. When he was twenty-seven, he had been recruited to work at Seirin State Penitentiary, a large multi-floored complex that held over one hundred patients in its walls and he’d loved every minute of it. The building and grounds itself were open spaces covered with flowers and plants and light colours. The workers were ever cheerful and worked their hardest to rehabilitate the patients to acceptable conditions and the results showed. Many of the patients were out before three months and rarely had relapses and Kouki loved the feeling of helping others.

It really wasn’t much of a surprise then, when Kouki immediately jumped at the chance to help more and looking back, he really believed that what he had been doing was right.

Then he was introduced to his newest patient.

His only patient.

* * *

 

He had gotten dressed and left for work as usual. He only lived a couple blocks away and preferred walking (and not because he didn’t own a car, he promises) and usually picked up a few pastries at the local bakery for the children on his way. The penitentiary always cut a stunning figure in the early morning light, the radiant beams from the barely there sun hitting the light peach walls and splattering the foliage with a calming glow and Kouki almost never resisted the urge to simply stare in amazement at the beauty.

When he entered the building, mouth still idly chewing on the remnants of the buttered puff still in his mouth, he almost choked when he saw the imposing figure of Hyuuga Junpei talking softly into his sleek black phone.

Hyuuga was a near legend in Seirin. He and his two best friends, Riko Aida and Kiyoshi Teppei were responsible for the apprehensions of what was easily the most heinous group of serial murderers in Japan’s history. They were a group of six men who called themselves the ‘Generation of Miracles’ and who had no motivations, simply murdered for the fun of it and they had taken fifteen years to catch. Evidentially, the leader was a genius and his plans were near impeccable but Hyuuga and his cohorts managed to trick him into a trap and had apprehended them all.

When the whole debacle was cleaned up, all six of the members were executed and Hyuuga went on to become head of the national security department, so begs the question of why in the name of all that was remotely holy was Hyuuga Junpei standing in the lobby of Kouki’s workplace like it was the most natural thing in the world?

Hyuuga was every bit as intimidating as the pictures made him out to be. He was of average height with rather peach skin and narrowed dark brown eyes that stared out through the open windows behind his thin silver rimmed glasses. His hair was a dark brown colour that seemed chestnut in the light with the locks just about brushing his angled jaw. His bangs were short, however and his eyebrows were furrowed into near annoyance. He wore a standard white button down shirt with dark blue suspenders and matching slacks and his pale blue tie was tucked neatly into his pocket. All in all, he cut an impressive figure in the light and Kouki couldn’t even begin to fathom his reason for visiting.

“Just tell Koganei to look after it, I already told him I wouldn’t be in today,” his voice was smooth, Kouki noted and after standing in the doorway for a bit, Kouki decided that he might as well sign in and start working. Except, when he started walking towards the reception table, Hyuuga held out his hand and motioned for him to wait, mouthing ‘hold on’ all the while.

Well. That’s not strange at all.

“Yes. Yeah. _Fine_ Izuki, just don’t blow up my office, okay?” Hyuuga nodded and smiled and Kouki thought that he looked nicer when his eyebrows weren’t so furrowed, gentler. “Mm, tell Aida I’ll be home late. Right.” Then he hung up and quickly slipped his phone into his shirt pocket, eyes immediately taking on a more serious shine as he turned to address Kouki. “You, Furihata Kouki, right?”

Kouki had to resist the urge to flinch at the steel in his tone and nodded as he mentally flicked through his memories to think of any federal offences he had committed over the past few weeks. Hyuuga crossed the room and was in front of him quickly, narrow eyes appraising him before slipping toward the elevator, idly remembering to present his badge. “I’m Hyuuga Junpei, Head of National Security and you have been assigned to a very important job. Come with me.”

Now Kouki was very confused. Actually, no, he was confused a couple minutes ago, now he was just this side of unnerved. Hyuuga strolled into the elevator and Kouki followed him after the man sent him a sharp look. His fingers immediately clicked the B-11 button and Kouki gasped, “Um, Hyuuga-san, we aren’t allowed to go to that floor. It’s locked.”

Hyuuga simply snorted, “Don’t worry, I have clearance, and after today, so will you.”

The ride down was short and awkward, Hyuuga was flicking through a notebook he had pulled from his pocket and Kouki was simply trying to comprehend exactly what was going on. When the door dinged cheerfully signaling their arrival to the floor, Kouki suddenly felt his stomach drop.

“Before we continue, I need you to swear an oath that you will never speak a word of what you see here to anyone, under no circumstances.”

Okay, now he was officially wary. And maybe just a bit worried.

“I-Is that really necessary? I don’t even know what this is about.”

“This is about your new job. Now, the oath.”

“Can I have more information than just that—“

“Swear it.”

“Okay.”

Hyuuga cast one more look in his direction before opening the steel doors and letting the freezing air swirl into the waiting room. “Welcome to B Floor 11 of the Seirin State Penitentiary where we hold only one patient.”

The first thing Kouki noticed was how… shiny everything was. The walls were stainless steel and impeccably polished, the floor was lined with tiles so white that Kouki could see his reflection perfectly and the florescent lighting was harsh. There were no windows and Kouki couldn’t even discern any visible vents but it was cold. So very cold that he hadn’t been in the room for even five minutes and he could already feel his fingers tingling.

Hyuuga was already walking through a door and Kouki nearly squeaked when he realized that he was being left behind. “Please stay close to me, this floor in a labyrinth, so ensure that you don’t become lost. “

As soon as Kouki entered the new room, he knew exactly what Hyuuga was talking about. This room was identical to the one before it. Same walls, same floor, same harsh light, same biting cold. There was only one difference and that was the small red two that sat innocuously on the left wall.

“As the new keeper of B Floor 11 and its patient, I need you to be aware of the rules and regulations of this floor.”

Kouki started at that. Hyuuga was still briskly walking through the halls as though it was second nature and he was struggling to take everything in. “Wait, aren’t the rules the sam-“

“Rule number one, never talk about B Floor 11. For all intents and purposes, this floor does not exist.”

Another door, an identical hallway, this time the temperature was slightly chillier than the last. A small three marked this room. “How am I going to explain this-“

“Rule number two; if it has a shadow, do not, under any circumstances, bring it to this floor. This includes aluminum, dark clothing, translucent objects and any opaque object that would hinder the light.”

Another door, number five was splattered on the wall in black this time and it was positively freezing. Kouki was getting sick just looking at the walls now,” How does that even _work_ —“

Hyuuga came to an abrupt stop in front of a door with a huge crimson six painted onto it _._ He turned around and Kouki very nearly collided with him. His eyes were serious and his furrow had returned, he looked harsh, agitated. “The final rule of this floor that you as the keeper must uphold,” Hyuuga placed his hand on the door and twisted the knob open and Kouki was assaulted by a gust of air so frigid that his nose and lips immediately turned blue. His legs were frozen and his fingers were numbed out and he could feel the chill settling into his bones but Hyuuga looked so damn _unbothered._

“Never, and I do mean _never_ listen to the voice in the box.”


	2. Hello! How are You?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, welcome to your new lifetime job at 11 Storeys Underground. 
> 
> This isn't what you applied for?
> 
> Well, welcome anyway!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this is really late! Eh, I don’t have a reason for it (except maybe binging a bunch of anime and playing SMT:IV, so much that the Tokyo Map song in stuck in my head) but I really love writing this verse, if for nothing other than the fact that writing FuriKuro interactions is bae. Eh, I’ll see what happens.

_Hyuuga placed his hand on the door and twisted the knob open and Kouki was assaulted by a gust of air so frigid that his nose and lips immediately turned blue. His legs were frozen and his fingers were numbed out and he could feel the chill settling into his bones but Hyuuga looked so damn unbothered._

_“Never, and I do mean never listen to the voice in the box.”_

* * *

 

“Hold on a moment, please, Hyuuga-san!”

Hyuuga’s sharp eyes stared at Kouki through his thin lenses and the brunet suddenly felt a chill completely unrelated to the room’s temperature, “Yes?”

For a moment Kouki wondered how someone could make a single word sound so much like a threat but his mind was focused on other things. The sinking feeling in his stomach, for example. “I really don’t know what’s going on here! This is all very beautiful, but I have patients to attend to and-“

“Do you really not know what this is all about?” Hyuuga’s voice was a bit softer and his eyes had lost their sharp edge. He had taken his hands off the doorknob and now had them folded across his chest looking every bit as concerned as he was intimidating.

Kouki frowned and his eyes fell to the floor, arms reaching to his shoulders in a futile effort to abate some of the cold, “No, sir.”

Hyuuga looked at him for a second more before clicking his tongue and walking into the room, motioning for Kouki to follow him, “I don’t know why I’m bothering to be surprised.”

Kouki didn’t really know what he was supposed to expect beyond the ominous door, more sparkling, unsettling halls and walls perhaps, but he most certainly was not expecting an entire room made of glittering reflective glass. It was cold, that much was obvious, but the door led into a huge room with two doors to the right and left. Closer to the door on the right, there were two chairs and a table all coated with glass and polished steel. The cushions were sheer, a pure white satin covering glinting in the florescent lighting. Further to the left there was a kitchenette and a door that seemed to lead to a bathroom. The rest of the room was empty space, allowing Kouki to marvel at the glass tile lining the entirety of the floor.

Hyuuga had already started moving towards the glass chairs when Kouki was struck out of his stupor by Hyuuga’s calm voice, the tenor tempered by a small layer of barely hidden annoyance, “Do you know exactly what a penitentiary is?” Hyuuga sat casually on the chair and Kouki flinched a bit at the simple thought of how cold the seat would be, “It’s a prison. A place where people who are deemed too dangerous to be around other human beings are locked away to rot for their crimes.”

Kouki blinked, “But this isn’t a prison. It’s a psychiatric ward.”

Hyuuga nodded, “Right. Well, on the surface anyway.” Hyuuga got up from his seat and moved towards the kitchenette, “What you’ve been seeing this entire trip is the actual Seirin State Penitentiary, a high security, manmade labyrinth made up of over forty interchangeable rooms that change layouts once every twelve hours.” Hyuuga opened the fridge and pulled out a can of coffee, opening it and allowing the pop of the can to fill the room before taking a long sip. He looked over at Kouki and motioned to the fridge, “Did you want anything?”

Kouki shook his head.

“In any case, “ Hyuuga continued, “Your ‘promotion’ is simply the assignment to look over Patient Zero. That’s it. Any questions.”

Kouki swallowed, “Y-yeah, just um, who exactly is ‘Patient Zero’ if he needs all of this security. And why would you ask me of all people to look after him?”

Hyuuga nodded wistfully, “Those are good questions. Smart questions,” A strong gaze pinned Kouki in place, Hyuuga’s eyes narrowing further on his trembling frame as he took another swig of his coffee, “Questions like that get people like you killed, but I’ll humour you.”

Hyuuga finished the last of his coffee and threw the can into a small white paper basket that sat innocently next to the counter and moved back to the main seating area. “You should probably sit down, it’s a lengthy explanation.”

The brunet finally crossed the room and sat on the opposing chair, shivering violently as the cold bit into his legs through his trousers. He fixed his brown eyes on Hyuuga’s amused face and frowned, “I’m sorry, it’s just very cold down here. Can’t you turn up the heat?”

Hyuuga shook his head, “Patient Zero is susceptible to high temperatures. This is the highest temperature he could withstand. Anyway, I assume since you recognize me that you are familiar with the ‘Generation of Miracles’ and the murders they committed?”

Kouki nodded, you would’ve had to live under a rock for the better part of fifteen years to not have heard of the gruesome tales. Hyuuga adjusted his glasses, “Well, there was a bit more to the story than just that. When they were apprehended, one of the Miracles in particular resisted arrest. He was of course shot lethally on site, point blank through the front of his skull. Understandably he died on the spot.” Hyuuga paused briefly and slowly, as if gauging Kouki’s reaction continued, “Except, after roughly ten minutes, he cursed loudly, retrieved the bullet that was lodged in his prefrontal cortex and shot it back at the officer that had shot him in the first place.”

“Wait, _what_?!”

“Please stay seated, Furihata, you can ask questions after I finish the story. The officers who had witnessed this, myself included, panicked quite a bit after seeing that. One of the officers out of sheer fear proceeded to empty his magazine on the Miracle only to be surprised at the fact that they no longer pierced his skin. Impervious to bullets after a single exposure. The Miracle was called to stand down by their leader after he killed the officer in question but the fact that guns had proven useless against them was now a problem. In the end, the leader of the Miracles revealed that none of them were actually _human_ and that they had been asleep for a long time. All they wished to do was return to resting so we complied.”

Kouki was pale and truthfully he felt a bit sick. Behind the wall, lying innocently a few feet away from him was some bloodthirsty monster. And he was supposed to watch it? He, who couldn’t even ask his dog to sit, was supposed to watch that?

“We had them separated and locked them all away in individual prisons, just in case they did wake up. As you’ve probably figured out, Patient Zero is one of the Miracles.” Hyuuga stood up again and even though he motioned for Kouki to follow him, the brunet stayed seated, staring resolutely at the reflective floors. “Patient Zero is, however, the lowest maintenance Miracle. He’s agreeable for the most part and as his… overseer, you don’t have much to do.” Hyuuga adjusted his glasses once more and opened the freezer, revealing a veritable lottery of brightly packaged frozen goods.

The man picked up a small cup of ice cream and quickly threw it at Kouki’s bowed head, causing the shaken man to wince and glare up at him. His glare wilted as soon as he saw Hyuuga’s narrowed eyes, though and he grudgingly began to pay attention once more. Hyuuga took an icicle from the freezer and held it as though it were an ancient artifact, “Patient Zero is very fond of anything that smells of vanilla. Perfumes, soaps, creams and of course, foods, we’ve learned that it doesn’t matter, he simply enjoys the scent and flavour. As such, twice each day you are to give him one of these through the hole in the door. Only icicles and only twice. He is fed by Doctor Akabane and Doctor Nagayasa at six in the morning and at six in the evening respectively.”

Hyuuga made his way back to the front room and stood in front of the door, “That’s about everything. I left both my number and the number of a friend who knows a lot about the Miracles in particular on the table. I don’t believe anything extreme will happen and this room is under surveillance twenty-four hours a day. Nagayasa will inform you via text the order of the labyrinth rooms so that you don’t get lost, he will also bring you lunch if you’re not inclined to leave. With all of that said, do you have any more questions?”

Kouki felt overwhelmed. He had a slight headache just trying to internalize all of the information he just had shoved into his face and he was still freezing his toes off but there was one more thing that irked him. Patient Zero (because he refused to acknowledge that that… _thing_ was a person) had been in here for fifteen years. At least it sounds that way. That means that there was absolutely no way that he was the first or even the second person to have this responsibility, so exactly how many were there before him?

“Just… just one more question, Hyuuga-san.”

“Yes?”

“How many people worked down here before me?”

Hyuuga paused. He obviously wasn’t expecting that question and for the first time since they had met, the imposing man broke eye contact and looked to the right of his face. Hyuuga sighed and placed his hand on the doorknob, “Fourteen. One for each year we’ve kept him down here.” He opened the door and paused again, looking back into Kouki’s eyes and smirking, a small upturn of his lips that sat comfortably on his angled face.

“All of whom you’ve cured coincidentally.”

 

 

 

The soft click of the door closing was all Furihata Kouki was left with.  


	3. Nice to Meet You, Furihata-san!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because sometimes your life deteriorates so much that you have to play chess games by yourself.
> 
> Well, maybe not by yourself.

_Hyuuga paused. He obviously wasn’t expecting that question and for the first time since they had met, the imposing man broke eye contact and looked to the right of his face. Hyuuga sighed and placed his hand on the doorknob, “Fourteen. One for each year we’ve kept him down here.” He opened the door and paused again, looking back into Kouki’s eyes and smirking, a small upturn of his lips that sat comfortably on his angled face._

_“All of whom you’ve cured coincidentally.”_

_The soft click of the door closing was all Furihata Kouki was left with._

* * *

 

Kouki sat in the large, empty main room nearly four hours later cold, confused and incredibly bored.

He came in for a normal day at work and was swept away to a secret labyrinth eleven floors under his workplace to take care of some less than human creature that he _hadn’t even heard for the past two hours_.

So, yes, he was just a bit irritated atop all the other emotions he felt bubbling up.

He looked around once more and frowned, there had to be at least a board game or something in the room. The room was reflective and insulated and its sparse décor didn’t even help, Kouki could still hear his breaths echoing. Really, it had only been about four hours and he was already feeling like he was going insane. He could hear his heartbeat thumping steadily in his ears, could feel his breaths as they moved through his nose and mouth and he was feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. Kinda like someone was watching him.

After Hyuuga had left, he had diligently put the numbers left on the table on his phone and was dismayed to find he had no service in the room. He fiddled around with the device for the first hour, checking his cats on Neko Atsume, playing a few games of Snakey, messing around with the settings on his phone. He had even played music for a while but in the empty, coldness of the prison (because at this point it had become crystal clear that this was a solitary confinement cell, no matter how _clean_ or _pretty_ ) the soft songs seemed to distort and curl around the air and it just made his head hurt.

When that failed, he decided to poke around the area. Disappointingly, there wasn’t anything amazing in the room to the right, just a bathroom and another room that doubled as a closet. There were extra pillows and cleaning supplies and an alcohol thermometer that stubbornly sat at 283 Kelvin (which he knew was 10 degrees Celsius, but was still irritated that it took him about five minutes of staring at the thermometer to figure out), but nothing to do, so his dilemma was still unresolved.

So now, two hours later, he sat in the middle of the floor staring restlessly at the door to the far left of the room. It was a simple door, just a steel rectangle painted in white, real original Kouki thinks, with a small rectangular flap close to the top. The characters ‘B-11-C’ are painted on in dark blue and Kouki thinks that that’s the most refreshing colour he’s seen since the day started. Kouki sits and he tries to think of things to do. Hyuuga had talked about the room being a ‘box’ and loathe as Kouki was to admit it, he was rather interested in whatever was in there.

But, Hyuuga had also said not to listen to the voice. The rules were very clear, all he was permitted to do was give Patient Zero his icicle and if he spoke to him, Kouki was to ignore him.

But he was so _bored._

Kouki straightened his back and sighed, it couldn’t hurt. He’d just yell a greeting and if Patient Zero answered then he’d take everything said with a grain of salt. If he didn’t, then he’d go outside, ask Nagayasa for directions out of the labyrinth and get some food. Simple.

“Hellllloooooo.”

His voice bounced off of the walls and danced around the room and settled until not even the vibrations were left leaving him in a soft silence. He sighed and leaned back, bracing himself on his hands to gaze up at the ceiling. Right, no response. He’d get up in a second and call Nagayas-

“Hello.”

Kouki won’t lie, he got scared. He got so scared that he flinched and then hissed when he pulled his shoulder because of his position. It was unexpected, he thought, he was expecting a rough voice, gruff with disuse or at least a deep voice to match the monstrous image he had in his mind but the voice that had responded was soft. It was a whisper really, fleeting and wistful yet so completely flat that Kouki was almost concerned. It also didn’t echo, he noted, just carried through the room.

“Hi. I, uh, wasn’t expecting a response.”

Well, he wasn’t lying. He didn’t know what to do now, really.

There was another period of silence, just enough time for his echo to settle once more before the voice responded, “An introduction is always a good note to start on, I think.”

Kouki was immediately alert. Hyuuga said not to listen to the voice, did that include divulging personal information? Though it was suspicious, the first thing the voice asked for was a name. Was he some kind of fairy or something? Names tended to be important to those things, according to the fairy tales anyways.

“Usually you offer your name before asking for someone else’s,” Kouki replied steadily. He would have to be careful with this.

There was another uncomfortably pause and Kouki thought that he had upset the voice but he was surprised once more when a small snort pierced through the room. He had made Patient Zero laugh.

He wasn’t sure why that made him feel tingly.

“That’s true I suppose. My name is Kuroko. Do with that information what you will.”

Kouki frowned. Now he had to give a name. Well this was just peachy. “Call me Jinta.”

The pause was shorter this time, the voice hummed, “I believe that’s the first time a human’s lied to me about their name.”

Kouki froze, how did he know it was a lie. He couldn’t even see him, let alone hear the lie in his echo-y voice so how the heck did he know it was a lie?

The voice continued, even and cold, “I don’t believe I enjoy the feeling. Please return the favour human and _tell me your name_.”

Kouki suddenly couldn’t breathe. The voice didn’t sound like it was a room away, muffled by a steel door, it sounded like it was behind him, whispering into his ear _breathing on his neck_ and enclosing him in its vibrations. Kouki felt warm, like melted ice cream on park walkway pitch warm and the words fought their way out of his throat without his consent.

“Furihata Kouki. My name is Furihata.”

He slapped his hands over his mouth immediately after the words spilled out of his mouth. He didn’t want to tell him his name! Even if he couldn’t outright lie, he was going to make a loophole, tell him his middle name or something, not outright tell him his name. He didn’t consciously make that decision. He had no control over that decision.

The voice hummed again and when he spoke, there were vestiges of amusement colouring his monotone dialect, “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you Furihata-san.”

* * *

 

Kouki left the room as quickly as humanly possible after that. He found that there was service in every room of the labyrinth except the actual cell (which didn’t really make sense, what if there was an emergency and he couldn’t make it out in time) and he had called Nagayasa for directions out.

He spent the following hour at the small café a few lots from the penitentiary picking at the slice of Shepard’s pie he had ordered and overhauling his thoughts. He hadn’t been in the cell for long but it still felt like it had been a lifetime. The artificial lighting and unsettling sterility of the underground prison made his skin crawl and hurt his eyes, not to mention the ridiculous temperature of the bunker. According to Nagayasa, the first room of the labyrinth was always the warmest sitting at approximately 20 degrees Celsius. Nagayasa explained that the temperature dropped by two degrees every room until it was at its lowest in the center. Similarly, every room away from the cell rose by two degrees until it was back to twenty. That was how he could navigate his way back in the event of getting lost as unlikely as that was.

When he got back, he almost didn’t want to open the door. Actually, he really didn’t want to go back into the cell at all, but this was going to be his job for a while if what Hyuuga said was to be trusted.

At least now he knew why the other fourteen were basket cases.

* * *

 

 On the second day, Kouki knew that there was no way he was going to work without something to dull the oppressive nothingness that sat in the main room. He had called Nagayasa at five in the morning and asked about bringing items to bide his time with to work and was pleasantly surprised when Nagayasa told him that he could bring anything in once it adhered to the labyrinth’s main rules.

Sadly, the only thing he had that didn’t cast definite shadows was a glass chess set he had gotten from his grandmother before she had passed away. The pieces were frosted glass as well so the shadows they cast were faint and splintered, so small that Kouki was assured that they were too insignificant to mean anything to the whole shadows thing. He also packed a deck of cards just in case and left for work feeling just a bit lighter.

When he got to work, spent a solid five minutes staring at room B-11-C contemplating whether he should say good morning or not, but in the end his paranoia won out. He walked straight to the glass table and set to work laying the board and pieces carefully to prevent either of them from breaking.

When he had finished and stood back to watch the picturesque set, he swore he heard a hum of approval.

He ignored it.

* * *

 

Kouki had decided against taking the set back home with him.

He was just going to come back in the morning and set it back up anyway, so he may as well just leave it. No pieces were going to go missing since only Nagayasa and Akabane had access to the room and neither of them were dishonest people and Patient Zero couldn’t leave room B-11-C so it was a safe bet.

That didn’t explain why he had walked into the Room (yes, uncreative but it was irrelevant in the big picture) to find that the black pawn four spaces from the right of the board had shifted one space up.

He had looked at it for a long time, slipping his furry white winter coat on and sitting on the chair all while staring intently at the board trying to figure out if he had left the board like that overnight but he knew that it he had left the board in standard play position. Kouki sighed, maybe Nagayasa wanted to play with him.

Except the brunet knew from experience that Nagayasa couldn’t play chess worth beans.

He was horrible at the game, so horribly bad at the game that he continually mixed up the rules for chess and checkers and thought that the king could move wherever it pleased, so there was no way it was him.

A heavy metal clank from beyond the door of the Room startled Kouki. Right, Nagayasa had told him that the labyrinth’s rooms changed one by one. That meant that he would be stuck in here for about an hour before Nagayasa could text him the new directions. Wonderful.

Kouki sighed again absently shifting the pawn back into place and meandering off to the direction of the bathroom.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the story begins. 
> 
> There’ll be more Tetsuya in the next chapter guys, I promise, but these things take time. That and I refuse to write more than 2000 words in one sitting. It would seem too rushed, I think. 
> 
> Eh, let’s see if this spell of inspiration lasts…
> 
> As always, don’t forget to drop a comment and tell me what you think~! Interaction is keyyy


	4. Six Trillion Years and a Shadowy Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now watch me whip~
> 
> And watch me possess your body--I mean nae nae~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! It’s half past three in the morning and I’m super-duper cold but my mind wouldn’t stop yelling at me to write out chapter four so here you guys go! I’m really pleased that you guys seem to be enjoying this particular verse because I’ve worked really hard on it (and because I need this in my life) 
> 
> In any case, enjoy~!

_He was horrible at the game, so horribly bad at the game that he continually mixed up the rules for chess and checkers and thought that the king could move wherever it pleased, so there was no way it was him._

_A heavy metal clank from beyond the door of the Room startled Kouki. Right, Nagayasa had told him that the labyrinth’s rooms changed one by one. That meant that he would be stuck in here for about an hour before Nagayasa could text him the new directions. Wonderful._

_Kouki sighed again absently shifting the pawn back into place and meandering off to the direction of the bathroom._

* * *

 

Kouki was convinced he was going mad. He’d have to be, there was no other logical explanation for it than that.

He’d been working in the labyrinth for roughly one week and every day after he’d brought the chess board to his workplace, he’d come back in morning to find one of the pieces moved in a strategic position on the board. It was always the black pieces and always one of the pawns.

He had written it off the first time with little effort but the second and third times he’d went to Nagayasa and asked him just to be certain and just as he’d expected, the amiable man claimed to have not touched the board, afraid that he would shatter the fine glasswork. The fourth time it happened he decided that he’d ask Akabane about it since the woman was in charge of feeding Patient Zero in the evening. She had dutifully reported that there were never any changes to the board when she went to feed him and in the same breath told him to not waste her time with dull requests again (Kouki was seriously scared of that petite woman. She was evil, he could _feel_ it).

When he had walked into the Room on the fifth day to find another black pawn shifted up two spaces and taunting him he grumbled agitatedly. He paced around the room sighing and grouching at the board like it was cause of his problems; he worried a bit because of the implications of such a thing. He cursed his inefficient employer because had he known this was what he’d be reduced to he’d never had agreed so foolhardily to the job. Then he did something really stupid.

He responded.

He sat and looked at the board briefly before shifting a white pawn forward one space. He didn’t know what to expect, if it would appease the ‘Chess Ghost’ as he’d started calling it but he did it anyway.

On the sixth day, he was greeted with the sight of another black piece moved on the board.

He wasn’t sure whether he should be pleased that his theory was proven to be right or to be weirded out at the thought of a benevolent chess playing apparition. He had taken a seat to contemplate where he should play when his eyes caught on the door to room B-11-C. Then he wanted to slap himself for being stupid. Well, more stupid anyway.

If anything was playing then it was the thing in the room across from him.

New horror dawned upon Kouki just then because he realized what _that_ implied. Patient Zero could move around at will.

Patient Zero could come out of his box.

Patient Zero could _escape_.

A strangled sound had clawed its way out of his throat as he stared at the door in apprehension. What was the protocol for this sort of thing? Did he call Hyuuga and tell him that there might be a serial killer on the loose? Did he investigate further himself? Well that was a definite ‘no’, he’d only had a passing conversation with the thing and he was scarred for the rest of his waking days.

Kouki stared at the door a little harder, fear making its way in his gaze as he tried to think about what he should do. Then, because his mind was a traitorous thing, his brain whispered ‘why don’t you just ask him’.

And Kouki was seriously considering it.

He had paced himself a trench in the tile floors trying to think of ways to find out without consulting the culprit himself. He thought of the cameras (hadn’t Hyuuga said the Room was under twenty four hour surveillance?) but Akabane was thorough in her search even if she was unwilling. There was no documentation of Patient Zero moving during the night hours. Not even sounds. He thought of staking out in the Room to watch but then he immediately discarded that idea because his workplace was already a solitary confinement cell made of reflective surfaces and echoing walls. If, just by chance no matter how slim, it really was a chess playing apparition responsible for the board, he would check himself into the hospital above him. Or he’d quit on the spot. One of those.

In truth, the more Kouki thought upon it, the better the option sounded. Hyuuga had said that he was the most agreeable of the bunch but then, one of the cardinal rules of the labyrinth was to not listen to anything he said. He was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

Besides, even if he did speak to him, he couldn’t lie, so he’d have to be upfront with his thoughts anyway.

Then he stopped. For the first time that day, Kouki lauded himself a genius.

From the brief sentences (more like words, really) that he had shared with Zero, the being obviously valued honesty. He could work with that.

“Uhm,” Kouki frowned at the croaking that escaped his mouth. He was nervous, sure, but he couldn’t show fear. All that about the abyss and looking into it after all. He steeled his nerves and looked resolutely at the door; clearing his throat, now what did he say his name was...?

“Kuroko-san? Are you there?”

Kouki hated the echo, he’d gotten used to his footsteps reverberating and his breaths enclosing the room but he had pledged that he wouldn’t start talking to himself. Hearing his voice bounce back at him was really unnerving.

“Unfortunately.”

Kouki jumped, even when he was expecting to hear him respond it still creeped him out. Kuroko’s voice was an even monotone, frigid like the air around him. The brunet sighed, he was really going to do this, wasn’t he?

“Can I ask you a question?”

There was another pause, longer than the last and Kouki wondered if he would get an answer.

“In technicality, that was a question.” Kouki stopped. Did he just make a joke, or was he being serious? There was a small pause and Kouki idly thought that he should clarify just in case.  

“Have a good day, then.”

“No, no wait! That wasn’t the question I wanted to ask you!”

“Then ask it and please stop wasting my time.”

Oh, so Kuroko didn’t need to wait for his echo to settle, he could answer whenever he wanted. Kouki swallowed, “I need you to be absolutely honest in your answers.”

A soft scoff rung out in the room and Kouki felt like he should be insulted by something, “I only speak in truths, it’s you humans that can’t be trusted.”

Yep, definitely feeling insulted. “That’s not true!” Kouki spluttered, “Lots of humans can be trusted!”

The voice hummed, “Yes, but I distinctly remember you lying to me after speaking only twenty words.”

“Wait you counted that?” Kouki blurted, did he really count how many words were said to him? Is that why there was dead air in between his responses? “Why would you count that?”

There was another pause. “There is not much else to do in this room, human.”

Suddenly Kouki remembered that he had an interrogation to complete and he sighed again, “Right, well, about that. Have you been moving my chess pieces around?”

“Yes.”

The answer was immediate. No pauses, no unnecessary words, just a straight answer and Kouki flinched to alertness. His throat was suddenly dry and he licked his lips, “Can you move a piece now?”

The unmistakably fragile click of a piece against the board had Kouki turning around so quickly that he heard a pop in his neck. On the board, the black knight on the left of the queen was now sitting innocently in the front of a pawn.

There were small tremors running up and down his spine now, he could feel his fingers shake. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears and he was sure that the frenzied rhythm was echoing throughout the room but his traitorous mouth opened once more. “Can… can you leave that room?”

There was a pause. One that seemed to drag on for a few minutes as Kouki stared numbly at the chess piece, but he didn’t care. This changed everything, this was _not happening_.

“And if I could, human?”

 Kouki was going to get himself killed if he didn’t shut up so why the hell was his mouth still moving?

“Show me.”

 The voice fell silent for a while. Kouki had shaken the fear from his limbs and had made his way numbly across the room to play his turn, the pawn quivering in his grip. His eyes kept trailing back to the door, stomach hitched to his throat and shoulders stiff, he felt antsy and suddenly wished that he hadn’t even brought the dumb chess board to work with him.

When he had finished placing his pawn on the board, he got up and walked to the kitchen for something to drink. Then he walked back to the main room and started pacing again. He was really, really anxious, he wanted to yell at Kuroko to make up his mind and either show him or don’t. Then he rethought that because he really didn’t think he could handle it if Kuroko suddenly appeared in front of him.

“Place your left hand over your right hand.”

“Jesus Christ, give someone some warning before you do that!”

Kouki had jumped and maybe he had screamed a bit at the sudden cold monotone voice. His hand was over his heaving chest as he glared pathetically at the door in front of him.

“I apologise.” Except he really didn’t because Kouki could hear the amusement colouring his tone. “Place your left hand over your right hand,” he repeated.

Kouki frowned and crossed his arms over each other hesitantly, he turned his gaze back to the door, “You aren’t gonna possess me or something, right?”

The voice hummed again, “Or something.”

Kouki froze.

Then he felt it.

A sudden lurch in his stomach, a freezing feeling that whispered through his bones and then he couldn’t move a limb. He couldn’t even blink. He felt a chill carry down his spine and paralyze his body in place and suddenly he regretted everything. His chest hurt, it felt like he was drowning and his mind was screaming at him to _put your hands down, you idiot_ but he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t listen to him.

He tried to look down but only succeeded in moving his eyeballs down to his hands. What had he done?  He was panicking, what was causing this?! All he did was cross his hands, nothing special.

Then he saw it.

The shadow.

The small shadow cast by his hand over the other was expanding and consuming the floor beneath him, darkening his skin and tainting the tiles with the dark blackness. Kouki watched on in abject horror as tendrils of the shadow twisted up in a macabre mockery of evaporating water and swirled around itself. More and more convoluted shadowy tendrils joined the dark space until suddenly, they stopped.

There was a scratching sound, the only sound in the room and Kouki struggled to swallow the lump in his throat and the shadows quite literally became a man.

Pale was Kouki’s first thought. So pale that under the lights of the room, he seemed to be translucent. Then Kouki realized that he could actually see the board through his chest and his mind went blank.

Whatever was paralyzing him released its hold on his limbs and Kouki collapsed into a pile of useless limbs onto the floor.

What the hell did he just do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!! *blows party flute* 
> 
> Tetsuya is in the building people! I repeat, Tetsuya is in the building!
> 
> Let’s see Furihata dig his way outta this one.
> 
> Shower me in your thoughts~! What do you guys think Tetsu’s gonna do next? Are you excited for the next chapter? I am!


	5. Shadowman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Tetsuya mightn't be all there after being stuck in a mirror for fifteen years
> 
> He blames Hyuuga, honestly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh and before I forget, I’m doing this now, #ProtectFuri2k16 is now the official hashtag of this fic! Anytime something bad happens to Furihata in the story, or anytime you think something horrible is going to go down (i.e. the main babu makes a terrible life decision like asking a criminal to show him anything) comment the hashtag and your thoughts about what could’ve been done to protect him. You don’t have to play along, but I’d love to see what you guys come up with to #ProtectFuri!
> 
> Now, enjoy~!

_There was a scratching sound, the only sound in the room and Kouki struggled to swallow the lump in his throat and the shadows quite literally became a man._

_Pale was Kouki’s first thought. So pale that under the lights of the room, he seemed to be translucent. Then Kouki realized that he could actually see the board through his chest and his mind went blank._

_Whatever was paralyzing him released its hold on his limbs and Kouki collapsed into a pile of useless limbs onto the floor._

_What the hell did he just do?_

* * *

 

Tetsuya Kuroko was a very old being.

His first memories were of a soft, motherly voice coaxing him awake from his core of blackness. The earthen mother, Gaia, had given him a task to look after the Underrealm, the heavy weight of maintaining balance falling to his narrow shoulders. He had built the realm alongside her as her first helper, the first member of the pantheon and he had dubbed his world ‘Jirae’.

Gaia had created for him an equal as a reward for his patience and responsibility.

He was born of the sun, clothed in the heat and energy that drove the universe and doused in the aura of a thousand burning stars. Aptly, Gaia had called him ‘Akashi’.

Together, they had listened as the earthen mother listed their roles and place in the universe, Seijuurou (for that is the name he had chosen for himself) would rule the Overland with absolute fiat and Tetsuya would maintain the balance between Overland and its Underrealm. They were to be two sides of the same coin, yin and yang, the sun to the other’s moon.

As time flowed in Overland, Tetsuya and Seijuurou grew lonely. They were destined to be together, yet they could never see each other. If Tetsuya were to leave his place in Jirae, the Underrealm would begin to destabilize and if Seijuurou were to step foot in Jirae, the emperor would perish from the constant poison that polluted the air.

After a long time of fleeting glimpses and hesitant attempts at communication between the two, Seijuurou petitioned to Gaia for companions, if not exclusively for Tetsuya. Seijuurou had the trees and animals, he had said, while Tetsuya only had the solace of a realm seeped in shadows and death. The earthen mother had granted them then, the power to create life between themselves. Anything born of Seijuurou’s will would thrive in Jirae, carrying the wish to take the loneliness from Tetsuya, anything born of Tetsuya would thrive on Gaia, carrying the hope to protect the emperor from himself.

This was how they had lived for decades.

…Tetsuya was very old indeed.

Perhaps this was the reason for his amusement at the flailing human in front of him. 

* * *

Kouki was dead. He was so dead that he’d probably continue to be dead after death itself. What kind of idiot challenges an inhuman serial murderer to magic their way out of their cell without a way to contain them? Apparently him, because that’s exactly what he just did.

He was still on the floor, limbs fatigued and limp after what he could only be described as a possession of some sort and he was _terrified_. Kuroko was an impossibly pale white. His body was wisp-like, his extremities like hands and feet disappearing into grayish, transparent abstract shapes until they merged with the surrounding shadows and became darker than black. There was nothing remarkable about is body, he was actually a fair bit shorter than Kouki himself, but the most intimidating thing about him (barring the whole, you know, ghost vibe) were his eyes. They were a listless baby blue with slit, cat-like pupils and a thin ring of fiery red around said pupils. Despite their initial blankness, they were incredibly focused on Kouki, trailing his every movement without fail.

Kuroko was staring at him, eyes cataloguing his every curve and tremble and Kouki suddenly felt a whole lot colder. He couldn’t move his body, save for the quaking of his knees and the tremors in his hands and his breath was lodged stubbornly in his throat. He wanted to get up and run as far away from the labyrinth as possible, Nagayasa hadn’t even had a chance to tell him the new layout of the maze, but he just couldn’t do it.

His wide chocolate eyes stayed pinned to Kuroko’s and he flinched in fear when the shadow creature turned his eyes, finally averting his gaze. Kouki’s eyes continued following him as the shadow moved towards the kitchen, probably to get a knife Kouki thought, and disappear behind the wall. Kouki heard the clatter of the ceramic wares and decided right then and there that he was going to escape, even if he had to crawl his way out, shivering knees or not.

Kouki threw his unresponsive body onto the cold tile and forced his arms to move, body twisting like a desperate serpent as he began thrashing his way to the door. He could feel more than hear the footsteps of Kuroko (even if he didn’t have feet, what the actual _hell_ ) and his mad thrashing became little more than pathetic flails reminiscent of a dying carp on land. He was almost to the door too, if he could just _stretch ou—_

“What are you doing, human?”

Kouki froze. No smart thoughts, no snarky commentary on the vague disbelief in Kuroko’s voice, just plain petrification. He couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe, this was how he was going to die. Murdered brutally eleven stories beneath ground like Hitler by a shadow man.

He felt something grip his white shirt (fingers, his mind helpfully supplied, they were fingers) and he totally lost it, throwing himself against the door and flattening himself to the frigid steel, subconsciously hoping to melt into the metal and escape that way.

“Please don’t kill me! I’m really sorry for being so snarky and lying to you but I can’t die here, I really can’t! I know you probably don’t care bu—“

Then he heard it.

A soft exhale of air that swelled until a small bell like laugh erupted from the creature in front of him. He opened his eyes hesitantly (when did he close them?) and gaped openly at the scene in front of him.

Kuroko was doubled over, pale purple dusting over his translucent cheeks and smile dazzling. His listless eyes, which were undoubtedly filled with mirth at the moment, were covered with his long frost blue bangs as he laughed, the sound filling the room and causing the shadows, previously unnoticeable, nigh invisible things, to erupt from their hiding places and twist themselves into whimsical shapes such as flowers and butterflies.

Instantaneously, the room was filled with shadowy plants and small, shady creatures of nature, all cloaked in the unnatural deep purplish-black hue that seemed nearly elegant in the stark whiteness of the room. A few of the shadow butterflies fluttered gently onto Kouki’s frozen nose and into his hair but all he could do was stare.

He continued to stare as Kuroko slowly stood upright once more, pale fingers wiping tears from his eyes and chuckles still occasionally falling from his thin lips. He stared as Kuroko stretched out his hand and allowed one of the shadow butterflies to land upon his fingers and watched on as Kuroko smiled and whispered something unintelligible to the insect.

He did, however, promptly faint when the shadowy butterfly fluttered off of Kuroko’s pale finger and twist itself into a majestic ass stallion that looked as though it was forged from the night sky itself. _That_ was too much.

It was all way too much.

* * *

 

Tetsuya couldn’t stifle another chuckle if he wanted to. The human was far too amusing, truly, that was the most he had laughed in nearly fifteen years. Then again, all things considered, he had been imprisoned in a silver mirror for the better part of those fifteen years and there was absolutely nothing humourous about that cramped, dull, irritatingly bright space.

Tetsuya sent a sidelong glance to his prison and winced internally, he was going to have to get a new physical body if he wanted to get the others out. Blast that Gaian sun to hell and back, next time he saw his love, he would punch him for shining so brightly.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Tetsuya patted the Chthonian steed and sighed, he’d have to clean the creatures up and return them to their home, the human seemed a bit overwhelmed after all. Tetsuya moved quietly over the reflective tiles and grabbed the human by his shoulders, maneuvering his body in his thin arms until he fit and then carrying him over to the glass chairs, that Hyuuga was a right bastard. A smart bastard, but a bastard nonetheless.

Glass, shiny, reflective tiles, stainless steel in impeccable condition, fluorescent lighting, Tetsuya snorted softly under his breath, escaping wouldn’t be an easy affair in these conditions.

The shadowy being deposited the human onto one of the chairs and fixed his long limbs, Tetsuya was unsure about how long he would stay unresponsive, it would be best if he didn’t wake uncomfortably. He turned to the creatures born of his joy and allowed a small smile to cross his features beckoning the dark messenger stallion over and giggling softly as the horse nickered in impatience and pressed its snout to Tetsuya’s soft hair, prompting Tetsuya to raise his hand to pet the horse’s powerful neck.

He looked back to the sleeping human and deemed him still unresponsive before stretching out his left hand and, in a motion resembling that of unzipping a jacket, quite literally ripped the seams of the dimension open. The cut in the fabric of dimensions was a thin slit coloured in deep blues and violets, the colours swirling and mixing each other in a loop that seemed eternal. The shadow creatures all obediently aligned themselves in front of the dimensional cut and filed into the slit with all the fanfare of men going to war.

When only Tetsuya and the horse were left in the room, Tetsuya snapped his fingers and frowned as the cut zipped itself back together and disappeared as though it never existed. He turned to his equine companion, “You are going to send a message to Shoichi-kun. Please inform him that I’ll be returning home within the fortnight.”

The horse nodded and turned itself around, elegant royal purple mane stretching out around it until it consumed half of the left wall. It whinnied loudly and stomped its large hooves against the tiles, crushing them beneath its muscle and creating a black vortex-like portal on the shadowed part of the wall. It reared back and took off in a dead sprint, disappearing into the portal and taking its shadows with it.

Tetsuya looked at the walls for a bit and grimaced as his pale reflection stared back at him. Right, he was basically in a huge mirror, great. He sighed and turned to examine the human, still conked out on the glass chair and his frown deepened just a smidge, he could just use the human as a vessel. It wouldn’t be hard to do, especially now that he was unresponsive and unaware, Tetsuya would just have to pry about a bit and cut a few brain bits out, like the ones for emotion and subconscious thought but that was time consuming and messy. Tetsuya would prefer to keep him alive as well, if he died before his time Kazunari-kun would never stop complaining about his paperwork, so vessel was out.

The shadow man moved to the other side of the board and elegantly sat, nudging off the pawn the human had placed in range of his knight.

His cold eyes glanced back to the human and he smiled a small, dangerous tilt of his lips. He was going to play benevolent then. That would work just fine.

He had needed a guide for this country anyway.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Tetsuya’s character theme in this fic would be ‘Danse Macabre’ from the Black Butler OST. A really elegant song that sounds amazing, but in the back of your head, you can feel that something’s wrong? Yeah, that’s Tetsu in this fic.  
> Anyway, Kouki’s locked in a room with a debatable figure who can rip holes in the dimensional fabric like he was Grimmjow. 
> 
> Next chapter’s gonna be fun.
> 
> Yep.


	6. The Straight-Faced Shadow Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to know you~!   
> Getting to know all about you~!!
> 
> Getting to learn that~~  
> You're actually from an alternate dimension right below mine.
> 
> Wait.

_The shadow man moved to the other side of the board and elegantly sat, nudging off the pawn the human had placed in range of his knight._

_His cold eyes glanced back to the human and he smiled a small, dangerous tilt of his lips. He was going to play benevolent then. That would work just fine._

_He had needed a guide for this country anyway._

* * *

 

Kouki awoke slowly.

His body felt like lead and his eyes stung from the bright lights of the room, but he wasn’t in any pain. He groggily shifted from his position on the chair and raised his hand to pat down his hair, eyes blinking quickly to wipe away any remaining sleep from his system. He felt like he was forgetting something really important but he couldn’t figure what.

His stomach felt like it was in his toes and he was weirdly alert, but he didn’t know why. He got up and huffed, stretching out his arms over his head and bending his back to work out the kinks that had formed due to him sleeping upright, how did he even manage to fall asleep? Usually he would go take a walk in the labyrinth if he was exhausted, he didn’t think he had ever managed to fall asleep in the Room before today.

Then his ears caught the sound of dishes clattering from the kitchen.

Kouki stopped, Nagayasa never came down into the Room during the day since he had taken over Kouki’s patients and Akabane didn’t care about anything but her job. She didn’t even have patients, she just sat in the observation room until it was six and she had to come down to feed Patient Zero. That implied that there was someone else in there but _who_?

Of course, at that moment Kuroko walked out from behind the wall, cold eyes closed in bliss and mouth perked around a vanilla flavored ice-cream pop and then Kouki _remembered_. The challenge, the shadows, the fear, oh dear lord above the mind-numbing fear and he screamed bloody murder.

At least he would’ve, but there was a pale, frigid hand clasped over his mouth and blank, equally icy eyes glaring at him from beyond a tangle of frosty locks.

“Please swallow your shouts and bite your tongue,” Kuroko intoned, “If you insist on acting so uncouthly, I will not hesitate to tie you to the chair behind you.”

Kuroko’s voice was every bit as monotone as it was from behind the walls, the tone clear and powerful yet no louder than a child’s whisper. Kouki swallowed his spit and snorted through his nose. He was going to die in a few minutes, he would scream if he damn well pleased, thank you very much. Kuroko went back to sucking on his popsicle, hand pressed tightly to Kouki’s mouth and the brunet grimaced at the amount of force behind the grip. The wispy hand didn’t even look like it could hold up a book bag, much less keep him restrained, yet, there he was.

After a few seconds of Kuroko not seeming inclined to move his hand, Kouki cleared his throat, far too annoyed to worry about his impending fatality. Kuroko simply glanced at him from the corner of his eyes and tilted his eyebrow up in questioning. Kouki nodded in response and after a few more beats of silence, Kuroko removed his hand from Kouki’s mouth, fingers becoming smoky a soon as they dropped from his face.

Kouki stretched his jaw, rubbing his face as he tried to abate the dull ache that had formed in his gums and cheeks, “You don’t look like you’d be so strong.”

The shadowy being hummed around his ice-cream treat, “I don’t look like many things.”

Kouki blinked and looked at Kuroko, really looked at the being he had inadvertently set free for the first time and he nearly gasped. The blue haired man didn’t look hostile at all. He was relaxed, eyes focused on his ice pop and shoulders(?) slumped. His aura was a bit melancholic but he didn’t seem inclined to rip Kouki’s head off at any given second, in fact, if the cricks in his back were to be believed, he had been out for a while. If he had wanted him dead, he would be.

“You… you don’t want to kill me.”

Kuroko glanced at him for a second, “Not particularly, no.”

Kouki frowned at the shadow as though he were being rather difficult, “ _Why?_ ”

What? Did he not think Kouki was worth getting his hands dirty? Was Kouki not worth his time?

Kuroko swallowed the last of his treat and stuck the wooden stick into his mouth, idly twirling it with his tongue, “Did you want me to kill you?” He asked slowly, almost unbelievingly, “Every human I’ve met was rather affronted at the idea.” He stopped and quite abruptly snapped the wooden stick in two with his teeth. “I humbly apologize for assuming you would be the same.” He lifted his arm and the grayish wisps twisted and collapsed upon themselves until his hand was in the shape of a sickle and Kouki may or may not have peed in his trousers at that image, “Please allow me to rectify the situat—“

“NO!” Kouki shot up, arms akimbo and legs quaking, he was _not_ going to die because of a misunderstanding, “No. Um, I’m very glad you didn’t kill me. I kinda.. you know, don’t want to die.”

Kuroko’s eyebrows were scrunched in confusion before he allowed his hand to return to being wispy abstract shapes and sat himself down on the chair opposite of the chess board. Kouki followed wordlessly.

They sat down in silence for about three minutes, Kouki fidgeting uncontrollably and Kuroko coolly looking at him as though he were the most interesting thing he had seen in years until Kouki cracked under the gaze and squirmed. He met Kuroko’s intense stare and gulped, right, now what was he going to do.

He caught sight of the chess board in between them and nearly cracked a smile, something else to focus on. He noted that Kuroko had already played and sighed in relief, grabbing hold of his he own knight and moving it across the board. He looked up at Kuroko and flinched when he noticed that Kuroko was still staring at him. He cringed when Kuroko simply flexed his fingers from their perch beneath his chin and manipulated a black bishop, the glass piece clacking loudly as it hit the board.

How was he supposed to start a conversation with this block of ice? He’d have better luck talking to himself.

The brunet looked resolutely at the board, hand shifting his pawn up a space and nudging off Kuroko’s knight, “So… how are you?”

Kouki thought he heard something akin to a snort, but Kuroko simply hummed in thought, “This is the best I’ve felt in a decade and a half, if I’m allowed to be honest. Check.”

Kouki startled at that, check? Already? He couldn’t see it. He looked over the board and sure enough, the bishop that Kuroko had moved was now lined perfectly with his king. He had used the knight as bait, strange. The brunet moved his other knight to buy himself time to get the king out of danger, “I thought that the room was just wide open space in there. Are you chained up in there or something?”

He was half joking, but his eyes widened when Kuroko hesitated a bit before moving another of his pawns, “Something like that.”

Kouki redirected his attention to the board in front of him, okay, so the room was a sore topic. He played and waited to see if Kuroko would say anything more and he was rewarded. Kuroko moved one of his rooks, “Why were you so afraid of me? I’d imagine you have no reason to.”

Kouki definitely wasn’t expecting that question. Idly, his mind grumbled at the fact that he was basically playing twenty questions with a shadow, but he was expecting to go insane for a while now, “Well, you’re a murderer. You killed a bunch of people and got arrested for it. Usually getting imprisoned doesn’t help a killer mellow out, so I thought that you would kill me.”

There was silence. Kouki looked up from the board and frowned at the surprise that was on Kuroko’s face. His frown only deepened when a small smile followed by soft, breathy chuckles echoed throughout the room. “What? Why are you laughing?”

Kuroko smirked at him, “Is that what Hyuuga-san told you? That we were imprisoned because we destroyed a town?”

Kouki was scowling now, awkward silence be damned, he was annoyed, “That’s the truth. You and your friends all got together, systematically killed two hundred and fifty-six innocent people and then spent fifteen years running from the authorities.”

Kuroko tilted his head to the right, “Hn, that explains a lot then. Check.”

Kouki wasn’t even focusing on the game anymore, he moved a random piece still scowling, “What does that mean?”

In an instant, all playfulness was wiped from Kuroko’s pale face, the expression and demeanor changing quickly and unnerving Kouki as he spoke, “It means that you’ve been lied to.” His piece clicked as he moved it. “I’m unsurprised, humans seem inclined to lying. Checkmate.”

The brunet glared at the board as he rearranged the pieces, what the hell was that supposed to mean? There was no way that the Generation of Miracles was framed for anything. Hyuuga wouldn’t lie to him, but, now that he thought about it, the one thing Kuroko had been was honest. That ultimately meant that one of the parties was lying and he made a note to research the case more thoroughly when he got home from work that night. He wouldn’t bring the topic back up now though, he could tell when a conversation was over. Another topic, then.

“What exactly are you?”

Kuroko tapped his finger on the arm rest, “That’s a complicated question, human.”

Kouki grinned this time, finally, something safe to talk about, “We have time. Uncomplicate it.”

Kuroko’s lips tilted up in amusement and Kouki counted that as a win, “Put in the simplest terms, I am the ruler of Jirae.”

“Jee-ray? So you’re an alien?”

“It’s Jirae and alien?”

Kouki stopped in his setting up of the pieces, “Yeah, alien. You know, someone not from this planet? Not from Earth?”

Kuroko seemed to consider his description for a while, “Yes and no.”

Kouki blinked, “Yes and no? How is that an answer?”

Kuroko smiled again, “That is also a complicated question.”

The brunet frowned petulantly, he was curious now! “We have time! It’s only ten in the morning.”

Kouki put the pieces down and sat back in his chair, waiting expectantly for the explanation which seemed to amuse Kuroko further. The blue haired being tucked his legs underneath his form and drummed his fingers against the arm rest of his chair again, “Are you familiar with the Newtonian concept of ‘every action has an equal yet opposing reaction’?”  

Kouki nodded, “I’m a doctor, so things like that have been crammed down my throat for years.”

Kuroko hummed then continued, “Jirae is, for all intents and purposes, the equal, opposite reaction of Gaia. Or as you humans call it, Earth.”

And Kouki was lost. He’d never been confused from a single statement before though, so that was a first. Kuroko snickered at his expression before going back to explaining, “Think of your universe as a large, multi-layered cake.”

“Wait, a cake? Why a cake?”

“There’s no reason in particular, I simply enjoy cakes.” Kuroko stared blankly at him, “May I continue?”

“…Yeah. Sorry.’

“Your dimension is the topmost layer, beautifully decorated, incredibly delicious and very attractive. However, your layer cannot exist without the bottommost layers supporting it. The bottoms of large cakes tend to be baked first, therefore very dry, cold layers that are eaten last or not eaten at all. This is what Jirae is to Gaia, Earth.”

Kouki frowned in confusion, “A cold, crusty cake?”

“…”

“Kuroko-san?”

“Perhaps, I will explain it in more depth tomorrow.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, it was a joke. Finish your explanation please.”

Kuroko looked at him appraisingly for a bit, judging to see whether he should continue before nodding to himself and finishing his explanation. “Everything that exists in this dimension has an equal yet opposite force on Jirae. It is how this universe balances itself out. Space expands in this dimension, but it is stagnant on Jirae. Time flows ever forward here, but it is nonexistent on Jirae. Choice is vital to life in this dimension, but there is none on Jirae. Do you understand?”

Kouki’s face was twisted in thought, the idea of something like that existing was a rather disconcerting thought, especially to someone raised in science. There were laws that governed this dimension, things such as gravity and energy, did those exist in Jirae? Kuroko had also mentioned things such as ‘choice’ in his explanation, did that mean that humans had a separate version of themselves on Jirae? Kouki had so many questions, this would change the course of modern science!

Kuroko huffed and stood suddenly from his chair, face blank and shadowy limbs seeming a fair bit darker than they were before. He turned to the brunet and offered a small, friendly smile, the first expression shared that seemed genuine, “My time is up.” He turned his head towards his room and his smile fell back into his default monotone expression, “I suppose I will see you tomorrow, human.”

“Furihata.”

Kuroko stopped as Kouki’s left hand was stretched out from beyond the table, the brunet himself wearing a sheepish expression, “I never did tell you my name on my own. I’m sorry about the misunderstandings, but I hope that we can be friends.”

The shadowy being looked at the outstretched hand with disbelieving eyes, a sharp smile tearing its way across his face. He accepted the hand, transparent fingers standing out starkly against Kouki’s healthy complexion, “Nice to meet you then, Furihata-san.”

 

 

Kouki decided that he would ignore the chill that crawled down his spine when Kuroko used his given name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TetsuFuri interactions~~ This is the ish that I live for~!
> 
> So, hooray hooray, Tetsuya and Furihata had an actual conversation. Next chapter’s gonna be great.
> 
> Next chapter’s gonna be so great. 
> 
> Unfortunately, I am inclined to inform you kind people that I’ll be going away next week to a place that forbids technology, so no updates for all of next week. Sorry ;( 
> 
> On the bright side, I’m a dork that handwrite things, so when I come back, I should be updating smoothly for a while. On the topic of this chapter though, how was it? Did you guys enjoy learning a bit more about Kuroko’s homeworld?
> 
> Tell me what you think, yo~


	7. Hello, Worker!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which revelations are made at two in the morning.
> 
> Don't get too mad Junpei.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’M BAAACCCCKKKKKK~!!!!
> 
> Came back from camp a few days ago to find that we now have 84 people that think that this story is great. THANK YOU! All of your excitement makes me really excited so here’s the next chapter~
> 
> Also have Hyuuga. He’s really cool.

_“Furihata.”_

_Kuroko stopped as Kouki’s left hand was stretched out from beyond the table, the brunet himself wearing a sheepish expression, “I never did tell you my name on my own. I’m sorry about the misunderstandings, but I hope that we can be friends.”_

_The shadowy being looked at the outstretched hand with disbelieving eyes, a sharp smile tearing its way across his face. He accepted the hand, transparent fingers standing out starkly against Kouki’s healthy complexion, “Nice to meet you then, Furihata-san.”_

_Kouki decided that he would ignore the chill that crawled down his spine when Kuroko used his given name._

* * *

 

Hyuuga Junpei was a very simple man.

He took things in stride and dealt with problems as they cropped up. He was never the type of person to worry about variables that would someday become a problem, nor was he ever the type of person to eliminate variables, a firm believer in the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ way of thinking.

He valued, above all else, his family, his wonderfully strong wife and their two beautiful children, his team, the ever smiling Izuki, his cat-like personal assistant Koganei, the strong, silent Mitobe and his best friend, Teppei and his job. He loved his career with a burning passion, it was the occupation where he could keep the streets of Japan free from psychopaths and thusly, make the nation safer for his family and friends.

He had two very simple dislikes. Liars and oath-breakers.

He had seen and incarcerated enough murderers, thieves, arsonists and even kidnappers to know that sometimes the crime had nothing to do with the person. He had played parts in diffusing bombs and dealing with terrorists and even in stopping petty criminals like shoplifters and warehouse bandits so he knew what to expect of most criminals that he had to oversee. People were predictable. Patterns were always repeated and very rarely would there be cases of special crimes that required his entire team present to stop it.

This did not explain why he was up at three in the morning in his home office staring dumbly at his computer screen.

Akabane Ichi, one of three professionals tasked with ensuring that one Kuroko Tetsuya didn’t escape the labyrinth, had sent him three very curious tapes from the cameras set up within the Red Room and Junpei was at a genuine loss for words.

He had been asleep in his bedroom with the twins since Aida had been called away for a conference with Teppei in Kaijo when he had gotten a phone call from Koganei. The brunet PA sounded rather unsure of himself when he stuttered out that they had video reports from Seirin which as understandable. Akabane was a very stubborn woman. She took matters into her own hands and rarely turned any concerns in to Hyuuga himself unless she was commanded. The most Hyuuga got from her was a short, stunted monthly report that covered the bare minimum in requirements to qualify as a ‘report’.

Getting a whole _three_ videos in one night sent to him was cause for worry.

Currently, Hyuuga even though he was sitting with his mind going at three hundred miles an hour couldn’t comprehend what he had just seen.

The video was in startlingly crisp definition, the camera getting a clear angle of Furihata Kouki, the overlooker who had taken up post in the Red Room almost a month ago, chatting amicably with the wispy yet unmistakable figure of _Kuroko Tetsuya_.

Which should be impossible because there was no way in hell that the being had broken the mirror. He _couldn’t_ have broken the mirror. Not without his physical body, not when he had told Hyuuga bluntly that he wouldn’t make any moves until Akashi gave the word.

Hyuuga knew for a fact that the red haired emperor was currently swinging gracefully on a set of uneven bars in his room twenty floors above ground. In Rakuzan.

On the _other side of Tokyo_.

The dark-haired man numbly clicked on the second video and immediately shot up from his seat in horror. The video was short, only ten seconds long and it showcased Kuroko taking ice-cream from the fridge and stuffing it in a swirling vertical vortex that sat on his right. Kuroko could cut the dimensional fabric apart, of course he could, he was the authority on said the dimension. Why wouldn’t he be able to make doorways to and from Jirae?

Hyuuga frowned deeply as he clicked on the third video, surprised when it showed up as a blank screen with a small speaker symbol in the right hand corner. An audio only clip.

There was a shuffling sound followed by a soft crinkling and then an inhale. “Good night, Akabane-san. I’m unsure how you’ll react to this greeting, but I thought it impolite to not forewarn you. Please ensure that Hyuuga Junpei-san gets this message also. Please tell him that the mirror has shattered and that he has run out of time. Please also inform him that he did a wonderful job directing the creation of the labyrinth and that I won’t destroy it due to sentimentality. I’ve been feeling rather benevolent lately, so I shall also inform him that I will be leaving on Thursday.”

There was more crinkling and then a hum, “Thank you very much for taking care of me during the past fifteen summers. I would hope for your sake that my family is in perfect health, as I am.”

Then silence.

The video ended and Junpei sat there disbelieving as the silence filled his office.

_‘Please inform him that he’s run out of time.’_

A sudden burst of irrational rage flowed through Hyuuga and he sprang from his chair, strong hands grabbing his work table and flipping it over, a large crashing and shattering filling the room. The ruckus would probably wake Akio since the boy slept like an injured cat but he didn’t care.

He was out of time.

The brunet stomped over to his table’s mess and plucked his phone from the mess of laptop parts and paperwork, taking deep breaths as he clicked number ‘2’ on speed-dial.

The trill of the dial tone swept through Junpei, the man cracking his neck as his thoughts continued to run miles around itself.

“Boss, it’s three in the morning. This better b-“

“Zero is out. Meet me in the office in ten minutes.”

“ _WHAT?!”_ The shrill tone of Izuki Shun rang through the phone, ”But there’s no way we’re out of time!”

Junpei narrowed his eyes, glaring at his door harshly, “Ten minutes, Shun.”

Junpei heard shifting which he assumed was Izuki getting out of his bed, “I’ll be there in five. Should I call Koganei?”

The brunet’s frown deepened to a stormy scowl, “No. He already knows. Get Mitobe and get in the office.”

“But isn’t he-”

“No questions, Shun. Get it done.”

There was a hesitant silence before a scoff, “Got it, Boss.”

Hyuuga pulled the phone from his ear and immediately tapped ‘1’, legs already carrying him out the door and to the living room to throw his coat on and leave. He’d have to call Teppei right after, this was an emergency after all.

His rushing was stopped when the wide, chocolate coloured eyes of his youngest child met his. “Where are you going, Papa?”

Hyuuga Akio was barely six years old and already took scarily after his mother. His hair was a light tan colour, reminiscent of his mother’s and his eyes were narrow, much like Junpei’s. The child was hugging his plush Eevee doll, Fulcrum and he looked like he had been awake for a while.

Junpei sighed and hung the phone up, dropping to his knees and ruffling his son’s hair, which elicited a small protest from the boy. “Go back to bed, Aki. Papa will be home later.”

The small boy shook his head violently, “No way! Papa’s really mad! Mom says that we shouldn’t let you leave when you get mad!”

Junpei groaned inwardly at the reminder of the ridiculous storied his wife had filled their children’s heads with and he took a deep breath, forcing his features to smoothen into a more neutral expression, since it would physically hurt him to smile, “Papa isn’t mad. I promise.”

Akio was having none of it, though. “Liar! I heard the crash! If you leave, I’ll tell mom!”

Junpei didn’t even need to fake he flinch when his son mentioned tattling to his wife, “No, no! No need to tell on Papa. I won’t leave.”

The small boy raised an eyebrow, a perfect mimicry of his wife’s ‘ _bullshit_ ’ expression, “Really?”

Junpei nodded and raised his hand in an attempt to make himself seem more sincere, “Really really.”

This seemed to satisfy the boy and he hugged Fulcrum tighter to himself. “Are you gonna come back to sleep?

Junpei shook his head, “Papa has a couple phone calls to make,”

Immediately, Akio deflated, eyes looking down to the floor and Junpei wanted nothing more than to punch his paternal instinct in its face right now, “But, I can make you my special tea and stay with you until you go back to sleep. How does that sound?”

The boy’s face bloomed into a sweet smile, dimples showing in the corners of his lips, “Okay!”

Junpei smiled softly, he was helpless against his kids, really, “You go on ahead in the kitchen. I’m right behind you.”

Akio nodded and started down the hallway to their kitchen and Junpei’s eyes narrowed back into a harsh glare as soon as the boy left his sight. Izuki would have to take care of things until he was able to get to the office.

“Papa!”

Junpei really hoped Izuki knew what to do.

“Coming.”

* * *

 

 Headquarters always seemed scarier at night, the tall building standing high above the others on the street. One particular Izuki Shun had no time to pay attention to the chill that ran down his back at the sight of his workplace, the raven haired man clutching tightly to the three coffees he had in his arms, quicksilver eyes narrowed in focus.

Patient Zero was free. This wasn’t the time to panic, he had to start planning.

Shun didn’t even nod to the guards stationed in front of the doors, moving swiftly to the elevator and punching the dimly lit ‘25’ button. The raven had never personally met any of the other members of the Miracles but he had met Kuroko once.

It had been a bit after Junpei had begun negotiating with the emperor for them to leave Japan when he had noticed an odd, pale boy peering comfortably from the ceiling. Shun had been working with Junpei and Aida on the mission so he was familiar with the idea of the Miracles having command over their world, but it had been extremely disconcerting seeing only half of his pale body hanging out of a swirling vortex on the ceiling and he had panicked and shot at him.

Izuki Shun had never regretted his perfect aim so much in his life.

The bullet had passed _straight through_ him and plopped into the vortex and Kuroko had regarded him with all the flourish of a king presented with garbage for dinner. Shun swore he stopped breathing when the pale being blinked in his direction and tilted his head in interest. Then there was an overwhelming cold that assaulted his back and Shun only had enough time to begin turning his head when there was a bullet, _his bullet_ , whizzing past his face and scratching his cheek, leaving a thin trail of blood in its stead. The bullet disappeared through the vortex once more and Shun found that he couldn’t move his limbs.

Kuroko had looked at him with his bright, strange eyes, nodded at him almost mockingly and then spoke five words that he still had tattooed in his memory.

_‘I believe that’s yours, human.’_

The cheery ding of the elevator brought him out of his thoughts and he stepped out of the elevator, boots clicking on the tiled floor. Shun could see the lanky figure of Koganei illuminated by the bluish light of his monitor, face twisted in confusion. He put the coffees down and picked up a styrofoam cup, a small smile twisting at his lips, “Any changes in Seirin?”

Koganei startled, cat-like eyes widened behind thin lenses before he relaxed and sighed heavily, “Nothing strange in Seirin, but check this out.”

Shun moved behind the brunet, handing him the cup and receiving a small thanks in return. Koganei’s thin fingers maneuvered the mouse until there was a picture of a large empty room with silver walls and white tiles. The picture showed a wall with six inconspicuous items mounted it.

A hand-mirror, a necklace, a bracelet, a small ring, a bright hairpin and a silky piece of cloth. Immediately Shun spotted the discrepancy, the hand-mirror was completely shattered, shards of the mirror lying on the floor below it with weird sparks of a strange energy moving through each shard sporadically.

Shun inhaled deeply, this was bad. This was _really bad_.

Koganei sipped noisily from his cup, “This is on B Floor 1. Boss called and said to check on it but I don’t know what I’m checking for.”

Shun groaned, “That.” He pointed at the shattered mirror, “That’s what we’re looking for. Koganei this is really bad.”

The brunet shrugged and sipped from his coffee again, “What’s so bad about it? The mirror broke I don’t see why that means I had to be here at three in the morning.”

Shun glared at the man venomously, “That means that Patient Zero is out and about.”

Koganei started spluttering, coffee flowing from his nose as he choked harshly at the revelation, “What?! _How?!_ ”

Shun focused his eyes back on the screen, absently passing the tissues to Koganei so that he could clean up, “Those artefacts are how the Miracles are restrained in the first place.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“Seeing as we’re going to be fighting one of them in a few hours Koganei, I would say that it’s important information.”

Both Shun and Koganei turned their heads to the elevator, the cold voice of Hyuuga Junpei filling the room.

The raven haired man straightened his back, “Morning, Boss. Wonderful weather, huh?”

Junpei picked up on of the coffees and strided quickly to Koganei, “Where’s Mitobe?”

“Kasumigaseki with his wife, remember? He’ll take a while to get here.”

Junpei took a sip of his coffee and cracked his neck, dark eyes focused on the screen, “Give me the facts Koganei.”

* * *

 

In a large, darkened room where the walls are painted in dark crimson, a man with bright, startling brilliant amber eyes sits on a plush chair reading a thick tome. On his right hand’s ring finger is a small ring in a deep black colour that glints in the dull light of the room and the man takes his eyes off of the page to glance at the piece of jewelry.

He raises his hand and there’s a soft silence until there’s a spark of acidic purple energy that lances through the ring, illuminating the clear jewel that sat atop the ring. A smile crosses his face and the man puts his book down, getting off of his chair and flicking his left hand out to the side, his smile curling into a wide smirk when a large, ornate lance made of gold and outfitted in bright scarlet silk and leather appeared in it.

He flicks his hand once more and allows a soft snicker to escape his chest when the lance dissipates into sparkles of light that illuminate the room. He moves back to his seat and hums as he picks his book back up and sits down.

“I didn’t realize that it was already time.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHHHH BOIIIIIIIII, WE BOUT TA FIGHT~!!
> 
> Well, next chapter is gonna be fun. I’m having fun. I hope it was worth the wait because I did work pretty hard on this (It’s nearly 3000 words!) 
> 
> On an irrelevant note, I recently discovered Hamilton. 
> 
> Hamilton is bae. Hamilton is love and life and is now one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. Like it’s up there with Final Fantasy in terms of my levels of love for this soundtrack and its history. This was made for me, goshdarnit.
> 
> Mep, see you guys in the next chapter. Don’t forget to comment too~


	8. Reincarnation: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> '...Wouldn't it become wonderful? 
> 
> Right now, god is my target..'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHY DO I HAVE 100 KUDOS?! WHY HAVE OVER 1000 PEOPLE READ THIS?! YOU GUYS ARE INCREDIBLE AND I LOVE YOU ALLL  
> Ah, I’m so happy. Sorry about this chapter.

**** _He raises his hand and there’s a soft silence until there’s a spark of acidic purple energy that lances through the ring, illuminating the clear jewel that sat atop the ring. A smile crosses his face and the man puts his book down, getting off of his chair and flicking his left hand out to the side, his smile curling into a wide smirk when a large, ornate lance made of gold and outfitted in bright scarlet silk and leather appeared in it._

_He flicks his hand once more and allows a soft snicker to escape his chest when the lance dissipates into sparkles of light that illuminate the room. He moves back to his seat and hums as he picks his book back up and sits down._

_“I didn’t realize that it was already time.”_

* * *

 

Furihata Kouki was very pleased with his current career path.

It had been about two weeks since he had officially met Kuroko Tetsuya and he had made it his job to learn everything he possibly could about the enigmatic being that lived in the Room. There were certain things that he had learned simply from observing the shadowy being such as his nigh emotionless face and his weird speech patterns but he had also began taking note of more subtle aspects of the ruler of Jirae.

 His obsession with the weather, for example.

Three days after he and Kuroko had come to a mutual understanding, Kuroko began inquiring about the weather in Kaijo and its surrounding districts. If it was sunny or overcast, the being would smile to himself and go back to fiddling with the ceramics however, if it was rainy or windy though, he’d nod to himself and turn his attention to the chessboard.

Kouki had also started taking notes on their conversations. He had introduced Tetsuya to the idea of 20 Questions and he used the game to garner information about Tetsuya and his purpose for being on Earth in the first place. Tetsuya was smart though, and Kouki learned very early on that asking open-ended questions would end in open-ended answers (he had once asked if Tetsuya was married and he had answered with ‘It depends.’), he had gotten some pretty interesting facts however, like Tetsuya having two brothers and that he didn’t manage Jirae alone.

Tetsuya’s general outlook on humanity in general, Kouki found, was scarily neutral. He acknowledged that there was good and that there was bad and while he had a rather dark sense of humour, he had never spoken ill of the race.

Kouki had also learned that there were certain questions that could never be asked, things about his family, about the physics behind his powers or even about his infatuation with time and mirrors. Tetsuya also wasn’t particularly chatty, but on subjects he was fond of (vanilla flavored anything, astrology and astronomy and oddly, basketball) he could lead debates.

Today in particular would be a special day. Tetsuya had been mumbling to himself about being out of time for almost five days and when Kouki had questioned him about it the blue haired shadow had given him a small smile and told him to wait until Thursday.

Kouki never particularly liked Thursdays, but he supposed that there were always exceptions.

* * *

 

Tetsuya felt uncomfortable.

He had spent the last two weeks writhing in unfathomable pain as his body adjusted to the constant blinding LED lighting of the Room and now that he had broken his silver mirror (with one of Kouki’s chest pieces, not that he’d ever know) and was without even the remnants of his physical form, he truly could wait no longer.

He had been continuing on his benevolence streak, informing Hyuuga that he would be escaping three days in advance and he had been punished by being denied food. Of course, with his body gone, he couldn’t actually consume it, but he could consume the shadows they cast and sustain himself with that. He couldn’t even eat the icepops since he couldn’t get the fridge open, he had been reduced to playing with the ceramic pots and plates to cur his boredom.

Tetsuya was currently sitting in the darkest corner of the kitchen, behind the oven, with his eyes closed and breathing labored. He could feel his grip on the physical realm of Gaia slowly slipping through his fingers, could smell the insidious poisons of Jirae on himself, the sickening miasma of his realm bleeding through his gelatinous form and darkening the surrounding area with his tendrils of shadowy black.

It would be so easy for him to destroy it all, consume the building floor by floor and swallow the shadows in the hearts of the residents. It was a mental hospital and Tetsuya had been feeling the pull of the negative emotions since he had properly woken up but he was being gracious. He had promised that he wouldn’t touch any of it and his words were contracts, eternal and binding. The building wouldn’t be touched in the slightest, though that woman in room 24-Y with depression definitely seemed appetizing right now…

“Good morning, Kuroko-kun!”

There was also the matter of him.

Furihata Kouki took his shoes off at the door and made his way to the kitchen, whistling a jaunty tune all the while.

Tetsuya still didn’t know what to make of the human. In the two weeks spent with him, Tetsuya had learnt that he was rather pure for his age and job. The man was generally nice and though he was just a bit of an idealist, he had the best disposition for the job Tetsuya had in mind.

“Today I bought sandwiches from that bakery you like. Want a piece?”

He just had to ask him to accompany him.

“Yes, thank you.”

Kouki nodded his head and cut the sandwich in half , offering it to Tetsuya when the shadowy blob stood from his corner in the kitchen. Tetsuya formed black fingers from his shapeless body and touched his sandwich, immediately inverting the food  to a mix of blacks, blues and purples. He shifted a few parts of his form around until the unruly black tendrils of energy resembled something closer to a melting porcelain doll rather than an already melted ice cream cone and sat atop the counter to eat his sandwich with Kouki.

The brunet grinned slightly and looked into Tetsuya’s eyes, “It still creeps me out every time you do that.”

Tetsuya shrugged and bit into his shadow sandwich, “It’s all I can consume in this form.”

Kouki nodded and bit into his own breakfast, “Yeah, but that doesn’t make it any less scary, you know?”

Tetsuya opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the sound of the steel door of the Room being crumpled and thrown into the tiled walls of the kitchen. There were shuffling footsteps and the clicks of guns and Tetsuya felt more than saw the fear that welled up in his human companion’s eyes.

“Furihata Kouki, step away from Patient Zero.”

Kouki opened his mouth to talk but Tetsuya slipped one of his dripping fingers to his lips and gently silenced him. He pointedly finished his meal (he would need the energy if his plan was going to work) and moved his gaze to face the one who ushered the command.

“It’s nice to know that some things never change,”

Blazing brown eyes faced him steadily, back straight and jaw tightened and Tetsuya couldn’t help the smirk that crawled across his face when he noted the acute lack of weapon.

“Hyuuga-kun.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied and I’m a horrible person.  
> Bye


	9. Reincarnation: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hyuuga and Kuroko chat over flare guns and a very confused Furihata.

_Kouki opened his mouth to talk but Tetsuya slipped one of his dripping fingers to his lips and gently silenced him. He pointedly finished his meal (he would need the energy if his plan was going to work) and moved his gaze to face the one who ushered the command._

_“It’s nice to know that some things never change,”_

_Blazing brown eyes faced him steadily, back straight and jaw tightened and Tetsuya couldn’t help the smirk that crawled across his face when he noted the acute lack of weapon._

_“Hyuuga-kun.”_

* * *

 

Furihata Kouki sat stiffly next to Tetsuya, eyes wide and unblinking as the tension between the ruler of Jirae and the Commander grew. Tetsuya’s finger was cold and grounding against his face, the solid, tar black appendage proving to be a suitable distraction from the five or so guns that were pointed in his direction. The brunet was just about to start counting the drops of…whatever it was Tetsuya was made of when Hyuuga began talking.

“You broke your mirror. Why?”

His voice was hard, resolute much like the expression on his face and Kouki not for the first time had to wonder just what transpired between the two of them.

“My time on this plane was up. I’m sure Seijuurou-kun was nice enough to explain it to you.”

Seijuurou? Kouki had never heard that name before, most likely one of Tetsuya’s pantheon then.

“Your king is just as tight-lipped as you.”

“Emperor, Hyuuga-kun. Seijuurou-kun is an emperor.”

Kouki heard the other brunet snort and from the corner of his eyes saw him fold his hands across his chest. “Yes, well, we’re wasting time now. What are you going to do?”

Tetsuya shifted his faux body putting his weight on his left arm and folding his legs, head held high and mysterious eyes glowing, “You are well aware of what comes next, Hyuuga-kun. These fifteen years were your grace period. I will assume you’ve made the proper preparations for the upcoming disaster.”

Kouki straightened at that. Disaster? Grace Period? What the hell was going on?

Tetsuya slipped off of the countertop and tilted his head to the right, effortlessly dodging a bullet fired by one of the men in the room, “Please control your men, Hyuuga-kun. If one of your bullets hit Furihata-san here, I’ll be quite upset.”

 Hyuuga’s face tightened and he turned his head to bark the order of stand down to the men behind him before pulling out what seemed to be a flare gun from the pocket of his coat and pointing it at Tetsuya’s impassive face, “What are you going to do with the boy, Kuroko? Taking hostages isn’t your style.”

Tetsuya’s monotone expression didn’t change, though his eyes did glint with a strange light as he regarded the flare gun in Hyuuga’s hand, “Who said anything about hostages, Hyuuga-kun? Furihata-san here is a friend. A word you’ve obviously forgotten.”

Tetsuya moved his finger from Kouki’s lips and clapped his hands together, the sound echoing in the still air of the Room. Hyuuga opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by the muted bang of a silenced gun. Tetsuya huffed and caught the bullet without much trouble, crushing it between his fingers and glaring slightly at Hyuuga, eyes burning in that strange light once more. “If one of your men fire at me again Hyuuga-kun, I’ll be forced to assume that you’re a hostile presence.”     

Hyuuga’s stance stiffened and he commanded his men to stand down once more. Tetsuya began walking, no _strolling_ , towards Hyuuga, movements hypnotic and deliberate. He stretched his hand out and touched the cool silver of Hyuuga’s flare gun, instantaneously triggering the synchronized sound of multiple gun safeties clicking off. Tetsuya simply glanced at the men dismissively  from the corner of his eyes and turned his attention back to Hyuuga, the red rings that circled his pupils blazing in a curious crimson. “Leave me in peace now, Hyuuga-kun. I am taking Furihata-san and I am going to leave and you will not follow me.”

A faint ring of crimson sparked to life in Hyuuga’s dark eyes, right around his pupils and for the first time since entering the Room, Hyuuga’s form relaxed and he lowered his arms. Tetsuya kept whispering encouragements into his ears, even as his hands guided the barrel of the flare gun to the floor. His pitch black fingers manually relaxed the furrow in Hyuuga’s brow, an action that seemed more fitting for a small child, and suddenly Tetsuya’s glowing eyes were on Kouki’s still frozen form, face impassive once more.

“Furihata-san, we’re leaving. Please get to the elevator and do not turn around, no matter what you may hear.”

Kouki wanted to argue, wanted to demand to know what was going on and what Tetsuya had done to Hyuuga to make him so compliant, but the inflection behind the shadow being’s voice and his brilliant eyes made him shut up before even getting the thought across his mind. Silently, the brunet stood up from his stool, grabbed his sandwich and made his way towards the rectangular hole in the wall that used to be a door. He walked out the Room and continued walking, shoulders stiff and mind running at impossible speeds.

Only when he turned the first corner to get to the first door did he hear a large explosion and feel the overwhelming heat of a fire flare against his back.

Then, ominously, the entire hall went black.

* * *

 

Tetsuya’s eyes hardened as Kouki walked out the door. The deity wasn’t stupid, he knew that Hyuuga wasn’t under his influence, knew that the man had only pretended so that the only civilian was out of the crossfire and as far as he was concerned, Tetsuya preferred it this way.

He was getting really tired of grace.

The shadowy man listened for the sound of Kouki’s footsteps disappearing down the halls and around the corner and tensed, the gun he was holding didn’t look familiar so he had no idea what it would do to him. He would just have to hope that it wasn’t anything extreme.

“You know,”

Tetsuya raised his eyes to look at his once-friend-now-liability in curiosity, eyebrows furrowing when he spotted the satisfied smirk crossing Hyuuga’s face.

“I thought you’d have learned from the last time this happened.”

Suddenly there was a whistling and a huge explosion of light and heat, the light burning Tetsuya’s form and melting away at his manifestation. It was brilliant and beautiful, the red smoky flame that destroyed his accumulated shadow so swiftly that Tetsuya couldn’t even register the agonizing pain that erupted in his consciousness.

The flare burned and lapped at his form greedily and Tetsuya idly figured that maybe it was for the best that he didn’t have his physical form as dealing with the horrible burns that would’ve marred his skin would not have been a novel experience.

Tetsuya almost felt bad for the human in front of him, he had no idea what he just unleashed now that his gelatinous amalgamate was destroyed.

_‘Tetsuya?’_

The shadow king stopped as the uncharacteristically small voice of his partner bled through their shared bond. The mated bond wasn’t something that they used often, Tetsuya was more than capable of handling himself and Seijuurou had made it known that he didn’t appreciate more voices than necessary in his head, but there was no doubt that the emperor had just felt the excruciating amount of pain that came with his amalgamated destruction.

_‘I’m fine.’_

Tetsuya waited patiently for his mate’s response, already formulating a plan of action for ridding himself of the nuisances that stood tense in the middle of the Room.

_‘Good.’_

The blue haired being rolled his eyes inwardly, Seijuurou could be worried about him later. He grabbed onto one of the henchmen’s faint shadow and wrestled his way to his heart, mind already set on what he would do. The henchman’s consciousness began its usual fruitless battle to kick him out and Tetsuya ruthlessly severed his soul from his body, consuming the bland tasting wisps of life and taking pride in the fear left in the shell of a heart.

Hyuuga relaxed and turned around to face his men, mouth open to address them and Tetsuya decided that he had had quite enough of Hyuuga’s words and allowed his black energy to coat the vessel he was using. Hyuuga cursed and pointed his flare to his new vessel and Tetsuya tut, as if the same trick would work twice in a row.

He quickly whispered an incantation to his shadowy tendrils and the purplish tentacles of pure energy systematically snuffed out every light that was in the building. Tetsuya sighed in relief and exited his vessel, forming a body for himself out of the darkness and blending himself into the blackness that surrounded the men.

Hyuuga turned to his left and motioned to another of his men, though this one looked familiar to Tetsuya, and suddenly there were flashlights furiously attempting to find him in the obsidian wonderland Tetsuya had formed for himself.

Tetsuya rolled his eyes and made his way out of the room, he wouldn’t kill them if he didn’t have to, it wasn’t how he preferred to do things after all, but of course, the humans couldn’t make it easy on themselves could they?

“Boss, he’s over here!”

Three bullets fired and all four flashlights pointed in his direction and Tetsuya just smirked dangerously. If this is how they wanted to play, then he was more than game.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So originally, this was going to end here… but then I wanted to have Furihata’s half in a separate chapter because his thoughts don’t exactly mesh well with this situation. Reincarnation ends for realsies in the next chapter though, so look forward to that.
> 
> Now if you’ll excuse me, I have Shintarou with a Gracidea flower in his hair to doodle.
> 
> Bye.


	10. Reincarnation: Part 3: Final

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because the world doesn't work the way you want things to work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who’s pumped?! I am.
> 
> I actually wrote this chapter to ‘Say No to This’ from the Hamilton soundtrack and I kept pausing to belt out the lyrics, even after the fiftieth listen. I have a problem guys, jeez. I’m actually pretty proud of this chapter too, so ey, enjoy. Also, I should warn you, there’s cursing and descriptions of possession and it’s after effects in this chap too~!

_Tetsuya rolled his eyes and made his way out of the room, he wouldn’t kill them if he didn’t have to, it wasn’t how he preferred to do things after all, but of course, the humans couldn’t make it easy on themselves could they?_

_“Boss, he’s over here!”_

_Three bullets fired and all four flashlights pointed in his direction and Tetsuya just smirked dangerously. If this is how they wanted to play, then he was more than game._

* * *

Kouki stumbled blindly through the dark halls of the labyrinth, struggling valiantly to find the elevators. The lights blinked on and off in strange, uneven intervals and the temperatures seemed to stay consistent no matter how much he walked which meant either the air control was ruined or that he was walking in circles. Neither of those things were very good, if he was honest.

There was an echoing shout and three successive muffled gunshots and Kouki flinched resisting the temptation to turn back. He frowned and bit irritably into his sandwich, brown eyes shifting restlessly between the door in front of him and the door to his right. Nagayasa had mentioned once that the labyrinth stopped moving once the power went out which was probably the best news he’d had since the day began, now it was just a matter of Kouki actually picking out the right route.

The brunet swallowed the last bite of his sandwich absently and opened the door to his right, crossing his fingers and praying that it was the right one.

Kouki whooped when the darkened double doors of the elevator greeted him before deflating, right, the power was out. The stairs didn’t go this deep down either, which meant that he was effectively trapped in the bunker. Alone.

Great.

The ex-psychologist sighed and began replaying his thoughts on the information he had indirectly gleaned from Tetsuya and Hyuuga’s conversation. First thing was the mention of a broken mirror.

Once during a particularly close game of chess, Kouki had asked Tetsuya how he had managed to be captured. Tetsuya had seemed hesitant about answering the question, but after a few beats of silence had revealed to Kouki that he had willingly put himself into a bit of stasis for a few years. He had also offhandedly commented that the only reason he was even there was because he was disrupted from his sleeping previously. There was also a particularly amusing incident which occurred when Kouki had brought a hand mirror from his house to show to Tetsuya. The being had frowned at the reflective surface and Kouki had realized that Tetsuya had no reflection. When he had questioned him about it, Tetsuya had snorted dismissively and asked him if he had ever tried casting shadows on a mirror before.

Tetsuya had also mentioned multiple times that his physical body had been destroyed by whatever had been keeping him in his box. The fact that shadows couldn’t be cast by or on a mirror and Tetsuya’s aversion to them in general, lead Kouki to believe that he had been entrapped in a mirror after he had placed himself under stasis.

Maybe that’s why Tetsuya hated Hyuuga so much, then. Maybe Hyuuga was the one that had trapped him. Tetsuya had made reference to them once being friends, perhaps that’s why they weren’t anymore.

Kouki was dragged out of his thoughts by the blinding lights that flickered on suddenly. His spine tingled for some reason, he didn’t know why but he was certain that the electricity returning was a horrible sign. He quickly pushed the elevator button and jumped in, pushing the ground floor button and sighing in relief as the doors closed, flattening himself to the wall opposite of the door and holding on to the bar for support.  

He honestly didn’t get paid enough for all of this.

* * *

Koganei Shinji stood in the lobby of the Seirin State Penitentiary, eyes narrowed and lips uncharacteristically flat as he glared impatiently at the elevator. One of the officers had reported humming coming from the contraption which meant wither Hyuuga was finished (which was very unlikely, no matter how terrifyingly strong his Commander was when pushed) or that the Patient was coming up to finish _them_. Shinji liked to think of himself as an optimist, but the last message he had gotten from Izuki was the code for them to prepare for the worst.

The elevator dinged cheerfully, thickening the tension as Shinji’s fingers tightened against the trigger of his flare gun. His shoulders stiffened and he inhaled as the doors opened, more than ready to fire at the monster that had more than likely killed off his team and he cursed when he spotted the brown hair of a civilian.

He raised his hand, signaling a wait at the other soldiers and tucked his own gun into his jacket pocket. He pasted an uneasy smile onto his face and walked towards the elevator where the mousy, brown-haired man was glaring threateningly at the officers that were holding him at his wrists.

“Would you let me go? I just finished breakfast and I am not losing it over you two.”

“Koganei Shinji, Elite Officer, who are you and why were you in the bunker?”

The brunet looked at him like Shinji was personally responsible for the death of his pet and frowned, “Nice to meet you, Furihata Kouki, Patient Zero’s overseer. Can your friends please let me go now?”

Shinji blinked, this little thing was that _thing’s_ overseer? Shinji signaled for the guards to let him go and directed Furihata to a corner of the room. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s going on down there?”

Furihata shrugged, “Not sure. Kuroko-kun had me leave before anything really happened. The power came back on before I came up though.”

Shinji tilted his head in confusion, “The power never went. Besides, the power never goes out in the labyrinth. There’s like twenty backup generators.”

Furihata shook his head, “All the lights went out and the temperatures evened themselves out. I’m pretty certain that the power went out down there.” Furihata rolled his shoulders, “Can I go get something to drink?”

Shinji nodded and went back to his position in front of the elevator. The power couldn’t go out in the labyrinth and electricity had been running fine up on the ground floor, which meant that it most likely had something to do with Patient Zero.

The elevator dinged cheerily once more and Shinji froze.

The very battered form of his Commander stumbled limply through the door.

* * *

The room stilled as Hyuuga limped out of the elevator doors. The strict Commander’s right arm, his shooting arm, hung like dead weight at his side and was supported at the socket by Hyuuga’s left arm. His glasses were missing and his nose was bleeding heavily. He had blood smudges on the sides of his mouth and there was far too much blood on his more crimson than white shirt and Koganei prayed that it was someone else’s blood.

The cat faced man rushed to his Commander’s side, ready to aid him to emergency and fly down to retrieve Izuki when he was stopped by a sharp shout telling him to _stop_.

Hyuuga staggered and collapsed, falling to his knees, wincing in pain as the fall aggravated his obviously dislocated shoulder. He bent over and heaved a thick, chunky obsidian liquid onto the floor.

Shinji flinched as his Commander groaned, the liquid pouring out of his mouth and even dribbling through his nose and pooling around his knees, staining his pants and sleeves in a vile ebony. He heard Furihata gasp from behind him but he disregarded it as Hyuuga coughed, blood mixing with the unidentified ooze before he spluttered one last mouthful of the thick gunk and fell onto his side, hair soaking up the dark liquid like a stringy sponge.

The room stood still in shock and Shinji watched on in horror as a single thin tendril of the black, gunky mess formed and rose vertically. The brunet stepped back as more tendrils, some thicker some thinner, joined the first and danced around each other, the drippy goop twisting and collapsing upon itself as though it was trying to grasp at something that wasn’t there.

The black liquid eventually solidified, dark limbs forming that were immediately covered in a dress-like covering all the way up to the figure’s neck. Then there were eyes. Round, almond shaped eyes that shone in a brilliantly icy blue with elongated pupils and a ring of blazing crimson that seemed to swallow the being’s sclera. The black ooze receded revealing a pale cherub of a face with a small frown and a mess of baby blue hair.

Those freezing eyes met Shinji’s unwaveringly and for a second the elite officer regretted his choice of career bitterly. It (because honestly, Shinji was convinced that it was _not_ human so gender probably didn’t apply to it) motioned to Hyuuga dismissively. “Hyuuga-kun will die if he is left untreated for much longer. Izuki Shun is still within the Red Room and will bleed to death if he is ignored. Please do not make my mercy go to waste.”

Shinji still stood statuesque as the being walked past him and towards Furihata with inhuman grace. He barely registered Furihata’s shouts of dissatisfaction and the door opening and closing, all he could see was Hyuuga’s pale face against the stained tile of the floor.

He was grateful when the world went black.

* * *

 

_WhatthehelljusthappenedohGodHyuugawasright—_

Kouki allowed himself to be dragged down the stairway and underneath the shady trees in the front of the Penitentiary, still unable to comprehend what just took place when Kuroko turned around and frowned.

“I’m very sorry about what’s going to happen, Furihata-san. I’ll explain when we are out of danger.”

The brunet barely had time to register what Tetsuya said before he could _feel_ his body being invaded by something slimy, yet solid. It started in his feet and scratched its way up his veins, igniting his nerves and making him yell in pain and surprise. The closer it got to his chest, the more it burned. It burned like he was being incinerated from his heart, the flames ferociously devouring his limbs and other extremities until it was burnt so badly that he had felt like he was simply a torso.

_‘Relax Furihata-san,’_

What the _fuck_.

What the actual fuck was going on right now?

_‘I’ll explain later. For now which way is east?’_

“Why the fuck are we going east?”

The brunet heard Tetsuya huff, _‘Language, Furihata-san. And we’re going to Shibuya.’_

Kouki didn’t even know when his legs started moving, but apparently he was running now.

What.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the end of the first arc! *throws party streamers everywhere*
> 
> Let’s get these boyas to Shibuya.
> 
> Don’t forget to comment and tell me what you thought~


	11. Tatsuya's Theory of Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A break from the action and a look into the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know guys. This is nearly 3000 words of nothing but HimuBara fluff and I regret absolutely nothing. We'll get back to Furihata and Tetsuya in the next chapter, but for now, enjoy cuddly dorks and stories about the past.

**_Sault, Provence: Italy_ **

Himuro Tatsuya sat comfortably next to an open window, quietly sipping a cup of lemon tea. The early morning air blew gently through his parted curtains bringing with it the pleasant scent of lavender and honey. He smiled softly as he took another long sip of his warm tea, the festivals would be starting soon.

His house was small and modest, just a floor above the bakery that he ran. There was an old velvet couch with three rather mismatched pillows not too far from him and his medium sized television was on, the pre-news programming filling the room with the relaxing drawl of Italian. Tatsuya finished his tea and set the cup down on the window still. He got up and moved quietly to one of the bundles of lavender flowers he had braided and placed around his living room, gracefully unravelling the braid and plucking three healthy stems to place into his cup. His smile widened as he re-braided the flowers into their previous ornamental state. He paused briefly after he had finished and rubbed his fingers together, light purple sparks falling from his fingertips and drifting to his carpets forming small perky periwinkles as they landed.

The black-haired man picked up the blue blooms and arranged them carefully in his arms, slate grey eyes looking adoringly at the frail flowers. Atsushi would love them.

He was certain.

* * *

 

 He was a seasonal being, one of the spring variety to be exact, and his lord Ryouta had already gone into hibernation with the rest of his family. His lord’s last orders to him were to settle down and have fun until he woke up and Tatsuya’s only companion up till that point had been a rather moody winter spirit who went by the name Yukio. Yukio himself had told Tatsuya that he would be going to live further East, probably in Russia and had left the spring deity by himself in the warm regions of western Europe.

Tatsuya didn’t really know what he was supposed to do by himself. Atsushi was bound by Gaia in Japan with the rest of Akashi-sama’s pantheon and had given him his brooch to take care of until he came back and humankind had been particularly uninteresting in the early years of the Gregorian Calendar. As a matter of fact, Tatsuya only remembered them dying from plague and disease until they adapted and didn’t die anymore but even still, he didn’t care to mingle with them just yet.

He just remembered being terribly lonely.

His thoughts were filled of his mate’s impossibly tall frame and his soft, heavy lidded eyes. Tatsuya’s fingers longed to run through his long purple hair and tangle them in the fluffy tresses until he scratched at his lover’s scalp. He wished to braid his beloved flowers in Atsushi’s hair while he slept peacefully upon his laps or to listen to his soothing tenor voice lull him to sleep with the words of the universe. He had even began missing his incessant whining and horrible work ethic and after one century of lazing about and completing his duties in maintaining the world’s seasons  in his lord’s absence he met the deity of autumn, Mibuchi Reo.

Mibuchi was strange, which was a polite understatement. He had chosen to court the deity of the storms, a wild man named Hayama and was probably the only one of the seasonal deities who enjoyed wearing their traditional clothing which consisted of layers of heavy silken robes and ornamental accessories. Tatsuya was honestly just glad that the being didn’t wear the ridiculous wooden sandals that would’ve completed the ensemble.

Mibuchi had been on his way to usher in the beginnings of chill to the southern half of the world and had decided to stop in one of Tatsuya’s personal fields. Not just any of his fields either, Mibuchi had stopped in the one field Tatsuya had taken to create flowers that reflected his longing.

The autumn deity had marveled at the blooms for a full ten days before offering to spread them to his regions in return for keeping his secret from the other deities. Tatsuya honestly didn’t care, his pining wasn’t a secret since he was certain Kiyoshi, the deity of summer, already figured it out when he came to wash the frost from Italy the year before and Yukio already knew everything about Tatsuya anyway, he just wanted Mibuchi out of his field.

Tatsuya had spent that century perfecting his flowers, spreading them further south and east and enjoying the scent that filled his territory during the summer months. He had formed something of an uneasy friendship with Mibuchi and to a lesser extent Hayama and would regularly braid flower crowns and bracelets for Yukio so that he wouldn’t go blind from all the snow that fell in his region as a result of his constant presence. His loneliness had abated to naught but a small twinge of longing for his love but he had eventually turned those feelings into flowers too.

Time passed as it always did and Tatsuya had frequently bothered Shigehiro for access into the Sky Garden to offer his new creations to Gaia. Kiyoshi still hated bringing summer to the north, Yukio still accepted his topiary gifts with a small, genuine smile and Mibuchi still carried the title of Most Elegant Season when the Pantheon were awoken for the first time.   

* * *

 

It had been something that Kiyoshi had been complaining about for a while. He had noticed that the humans from the West were overstepping their bounds and crossing onto the native peoples’ territories and claiming it in the names of their monarchs without negotiating with the heads of said territory, but none of them had expected the humans to enslave their own kind.

It was pure brutality, watching them be beaten and killed and utterly dominated without the means to stop them. The Emperor had made it one of the laws that the season deities could not interfere with the course of the world while they slept and while they understood that rule for the most part, it was a physical pain to watch the massacre go on beneath their noses.

It would be a further three years after the horrifying discovery was made for Mibuchi to get sick (something that had never, _ever_ happened before). Harvest was something Mibuchi ruled over, it was his forte as the deity of autumn and all the blood that had been shed on the fields had mixed within the earth and poisoned him. None of the deities knew what to do, there were no protocols for a dying season and quite frankly, no one knew what would happen should one of the season die.

They had brought him back to the temple and had explained the situation to Momoi and Shigehiro who had both looked like they had swallowed the largest pills of their eternal lives. Momoi had put Mibuchi into his room and had immediately got to work on extracting his power and binding it to his scepter .Hayama had grimly took over Mibuchi’s role as Autumn and Tatsuya had the personal pleasure of watching the storm-turned-autumn deity become darker and angrier in regard to humankind.

Tatsuya knew it was bad when he had returned to the temple to place a crown of Mibuchi’s favorite yellow roses atop his silky hair and was nearly shocked by the stray bolts of lightning that were lancing off a homicidal Hayama.

That same night, Tatsuya had ascended the stairway to the Sky Garden and snapped. He cursed Gaia for taking Atsushi from him, for taking the only member who could fix this mess of a world. He cursed his Emperor for sleeping peacefully while the world was literally bleeding out and killing itself and finally, he cursed himself for being so obscenely useless.

When he had awoken in the morning, it was to painfully familiar spidery fingers curling themselves in his hair. He heard a soft humming and could smell the rich scent he had spent centuries trying to recreate and his eyes snapped open to find long, straight lavender tresses tickling his nose and a sleep-heavy voice dripping with adoration and amusement whispering, ‘ _Good morning, Muro-chin’_ to him.

Tatsuya couldn’t quite remember what happened after that, just that he was pretty sure he cried a little and that Atsushi had spent a solid twenty minutes simply touching him and reassuring him that he was there. Then there was a clear, bell-like voice summoning them to the main room of the temple and Tatsuya took a moment to take in the fact that the entirety of the Gaian Pantheon, including Kuroko, had been awakened.

Aomine was still curled tightly over Kagami, head tucked childishly under the Love God’s head and arms wrapped stubbornly around his waist. Kagami for the most part was far too tired to complain about the War God’s weight or about his hair prickling his cheek and simply cuddled him back, right arm situated comfortably on his lower back and left playing idly in his now mid-back length hair.

Midorima stood to the far end of the room, weight supported by a stone counter and taped hands folded snugly into his pits. Tatsuya saw Kise, who was probably the only one of the Pantheon members who looked to be actually awake, bounce across to the ambassador and throw a fluffy white coat over his shoulders before jumping and lying horizontally effortlessly in the air, fingers already keeping busy with creating some sunflowers.

Then Tatsuya saw his Emperor and had to fight to keep his snort of amusement in. Akashi Seijuurou sat on one of the high backed chairs that Shigehiro kept lying around, sharp crimson eyes gazing sympathetically at an unidentifiable lump covered in a hideously garish burgundy kimono in his laps. His hands were on what Tatsuya would assume was the lump’s lower back and he was attempting to coax the lump to stand up and off of him with rather negative results.

Tatsuya only allowed his snort to pass when his own lover had bent down and whispered to him that the lump was the Jiraenian King and that mornings didn’t exactly agree with the shadowy monarch.

The rather lazy atmosphere was broken when Shigehiro had entered the main room and nearly had a seizure upon seeing the Pantheon all awake and gathered. Akashi had absolutely given up on removing his mate from his laps and had simply rested his hands on his lumpy partner. The Emperor announced that he had awakened them all to tend to the state of the planet and that on Atsushi would have to stay awake when they were finished to ensure that the world never got that bad again.

Tatsuya had expected them to get to work immediately since he knew the Emperor was a man of action, but was pleasantly surprised when they spent the rest of that day simply lying around. Kise collaborated with Momoi to heal Mibuchi and had passed the poison to Kuroko for him to consume (he had turned a strange silvery colour upon eating the poison and Tatsuya laughed for at least ten minutes when he found the Shadow King camouflaged perfectly in the patch of silvery sea hollies). Midorima spent most of the day writing in a small leathery notebook and Aomine and Kagami had disappeared into the recesses of the temple together.

They started work the day after and stayed working for a week afterwards, Akashi, Atsushi and Kise fixing the earth and Kuroko and Aomine dealing with the humans. Midorima disappeared from the temple and was most likely in his forest if Shigehiro was to be believed and Kagami spent the week with Tatsuya organizing and re-organising the Sky Garden until he was pleased and smelled permanently of the gladioluses he kept sticking in his brilliant vermillion hair.

Tatsuya was a bit disappointed when Akashi had announced that there work was done and that they were going back to sleep but he was quickly distracted by Atsushi asking him where he’d be living.

* * *

 

Atsushi was sitting in the middle of Tatsuya’s lavender field, eyes strangely focused on the horizon when the raven haired deity arrived. The Lord of the Earth hadn’t changed a bit, except for his new haircut, but he was every bit the spirit that Tatsuya had fallen for all those eons ago.

Tatsuya walked carefully across to him and draped himself across his lover, his long limbs spilling unflatteringly out of Atsushi’s hold and causing some of the lavender pollen to spread in the air. A light laugh was already pouring from his lips when Atsushi bent down to press quick, teasing kisses to his neck and nose, lazy smirk already twisting its way across his lips.

They tangled their limbs together for the next half an hour until Tatsuya somehow ended up on top of Atsushi, flower crown firmly atop his head and glittering grey eyes laughing as he fed his lover bits of the olive and paisley covered focaccia he had baked earlier that morning. They both smelled strongly of lavender and honey by now and the sun was beginning to shine in earnest and Atsushi was trying his hardest not to choke as Tatsuya told him inane jokes while feeding him.

Then Atsushi stopped.

Tatsuya felt the change in demeanor and rolled off of him as the purple-haired giant sat up and adjusted his limbs to receive whatever message was being sent to him through the earth. The spring deity busied himself with feeding the birds the remaining pieces of his bread and re-growing the lavenders that had been crushed in their fooling around, stopping briefly when he felt the telltale lurch of the planet as it bowed in respect to its master.

A slight breeze ruffled his hair and Tatsuya contemplated braiding his own hair since it was starting to get pretty long. He sat himself down next to Atsushi and took his long bangs and fringe that obscured his left eye into his hands and dexterously began styling the silken locks into a messy up do, stopping periodically to materialize periwinkles, poppies and hydrangeas and braid them into his hair as well.

They sat in companionable silence, a soft wind blowing lavender petals and scattering the intoxicating scent through the air until well after noon. Tatsuya had finished doing his hair and had fallen asleep, head leaning on Atsushi’s muscled bicep and half eaten slice of pizza Bianca in his hands. The purple haired god smiled softly as he fell out of his trance and looked at his companion, eyes still aglow in an otherworldly shade of green. He huffed and laid back down, making sure to adjust Tatsuya’s body so that the deity wasn’t jostled too badly and stole his pizza Bianca, chewing on the delicious piece of bread and closing his eyes in relaxation.

He would tell Tatsu-chin that they had to go home in the morning.      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pizza Bianca- a really delicious bread that Italian bakers offer to kids when their parents are bread shopping. It’s really good on it’s own but can also be stuffed with all sorts of things.
> 
> Focaccia- A flat bread with the same consistency as pizza. It just all around delicious and you can put all sorts of things on top of it to up the deliciousness.
> 
> I find it disconcerting that the longest chapter of this fic thus far is literally just fluffy HimuBara and history on the GoM.   
> At least you guys have some more information on them.
> 
> Please don’t forget to leave a comment on your way out folks~


	12. Echo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tetsuya tries to smoothe things over with Furihata.
> 
> Shoichi intervenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy! How are you guys?   
> It’s been about four, maybe five days since the last chapter and I come bearing the worst of news. I’m afraid I can no longer spoil you with fast updates, alas, my school terms begins anew in less than four days time and I must focus on my studies. No worries though, updates might just end up being once a week or once every two weeks instead of once every 3-5 days. Still frequent but just not as frequent. And school certainly isn’t going to stop me from yammering your ears off if you leave me questions or comments!
> 
> In other news, I have a dilemma on my hands. There’s a lot of information about this verse that I can’t explain or have logically in this piece, so I was wondering whether or not you guys wanted me to do a separate series where we went all the way back into history and showed the development of the world and of the Pantheon. It’s still a toss-up thing but it depends on whether you guys would read it or not, so in the end, it’s up to you.   
> Anyway, enjoy~!!

**** _The brunet barely had time to register what Tetsuya said before he could feel his body being invaded by something slimy, yet solid. It started in his feet and scratched its way up his veins, igniting his nerves and making him yell in pain and surprise. The closer it got to his chest, the more it burned. It burned like he was being incinerated from his heart, the flames ferociously devouring his limbs and other extremities until it was burnt so badly that he had felt like he was simply a torso._

_‘Relax Furihata-san,’_

_What the fuck._

_What the actual fuck was going on right now?_

_‘I’ll explain later. For now which way is east?’_

_“Why the fuck are we going east?”_

_The brunet heard Tetsuya huff, ‘Language, Furihata-san. And we’re going to Shibuya.’_

_Kouki didn’t even know when his legs started moving, but apparently he was running now._

_What._

* * *

 

Controlling someone else’s body without subduing their minds and emotion always served to feel strange to Tetsuya. Humans were naturally very emotive, no matter how bland they looked on the outside, and their minds were the center of those chaotic emotions. Controlling their limbs and eyes without controlling their minds felt an awful lot like driving with a bossy back-seat driver in tow, disdainful and biting comments about how you preferred driving hurled at you at every turn and traffic light.

Tetsuya had experience with carefully maneuvering the treacherous roads of humankind, much more than most of his family, so continuing to run through the streets of Seirin while the midday sun beat down mercilessly upon Furihata’s hair and face and attempting to work through Furihata’s sudden spell of bitter silence was a little more than child’s play.

“Furihata-kun?”

The silence persisted, and Tetsuya would’ve rolled his eyes if he had any in this state.

“I will answer any question you have at this point.”

Furihata stayed stubbornly quiet, a haughty huff echoing through the recesses of his mind.

The shadowy king sighed, “For what it’s worth Furihata-kun, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my plans earlier.”

Tetsuya momentarily ignored the cold shoulder being extended to him in favour of slowing the brutal pace he had set nearly an hour ago and ducking into a small clothing store. He moved directly to the back of the store after quietly greeting the clerk and after grabbing a few assorted shirts and a black jacket moved into a changing room, grimacing a bit at the small space.

He quietly apologised to Furihata once more and moved his collected form to his head. He ignored the sharp twinge of pure agony that flowed through his friend’s body as he meticulously erased all traces of his taint from the young man’s system and seeped through from his mouth onto the ground below. Swiftly, he moved his oozing body to the jacket he had brought into the room and sighed in relief, it was about three sizes too big for him so the hood covered his head perfectly.

Tetsuya glanced over to Furihata and frowned solemnly. The man was still doubled over on the filthy ground, head bowed and chest heaving as he cried silently. He could feel the stress and fear pouring out from the human’s core and stretched his now pale fingers out to comfort the human.

As soon as his hands hit the brunet’s sun-warmed head however, they were immediately slapped away, the dull thud of his flesh hitting Tetsuya’s hollow limbs echoing through the room.

“Furiha—“

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

Tetsuya’s frown deepened though he kept his eyes carefully blank as he retracted his hand. This would prove problematic very soon. He could hear the soft footsteps of the clerk walking towards their stall and against his better judgment, stretched his fingers out to his right and _pulled_ , ripping a purplish blue vertical slit into existence. He grabbed Furihata by his shoulders and fell backwards into the slit, quickly closing it and cupping his hands to Furihata’s nose and mouth all in one fluid movement.

Furihata’s fear spiked and morphed into unfiltered terror when he stepped through the rip and quite honestly Tetsuya didn’t blame him.

He was expecting to have made one quick trip into Deva, the passageway between the dimensions, and move back into the human world, preferably closer to Shibuya than he was before, but here they stood in a vast hallway tinted in an acidic looking violet with speckles of black and grey splattered on the walls. Tetsuya rubbed his temples and released Furihata gently, baby blue eyes already looking for his pest of a subordinate who was undoubtedly responsible for this makeshift plane.

He felt like this was a good enough reason for his surprise when he felt a heavy leather shoe smack him in the back of his head.

* * *

 

Kouki was freaking out.

He had just had his body possessed and was still recovering from the filthy feeling of having something foul crawling through his veins and wriggling about underneath his skin coupled with the shock of having to retch the being who was possessing him out of his system and the searing, mind-numbing amount of pain that lanced through his nerves. He was burning up in his rage and fear at the moment, though fear was definitely winning.

Kuroko had grabbed him and pulled him into some weird drug-trip looking space that was decorated in dark greys and blacks on an eyeball ignitingly bright purple backdrop and Kouki had no other thoughts in his head when he was released than to escape.

Kuroko had been distracted by something and Kouki seized that opportunity, quickly taking off his fancy Italian leather shoes and hitting Kuroko with them as hard as he could.

The shadow man seemed sufficiently stunned by the attack and Kouki pivoted on his heels and took off in a dead sprint idly impressed that his body could still move after all the stress it had been through. His chest was still stuttering and his breaths were heavy but the brunet simply blinked through the involuntary tears and kept running, he didn’t need to know where he was going, he just needed to get away from Kuroko. In his haste however, he failed to spot the lanky frame that stood ahead of him and collided solidly with the figure’s chest, legs quivering and giving out on him.

He rubbed his head and groaned as external pain added onto all the internal trauma his body was going through was combining to form the biggest body wide migraine he had ever felt in his life. He squinted up through tear-soaked lashes and yelped in surprise when a rather amused face stared back at him.

The man(?) in front of him was tall and stood casually in the largest pair of geta Kouki had ever seen. The bottoms of the slippers were easily about seven inches and rather thick, which probably attributed to his height. He was dressed in possibly the most elaborate piece of kimono, the grey material of the robe-like clothing wrapping around his torso and falling lightly onto his long legs. His pants weren’t like any hakama Kouki had ever witnessed, the near black fabric flaring out at his knees before being held tight by a pair of laces and tapered tightly to the rest of his legs, almost like very long, thick socks. Obsidian beads hung loosely from around his neck, each bead holding a different design stenciled in clear white onto their surfaces and his glasses glinted brightly in the dull lighting.

His hair was dark and messy with a greenish tint to them and he wore a single cross shaped earing in his left ear. On his back was a large rectangular object connected to a prettily decorated blue and cream sash that he had slung over his chest that looked like it had been dyed in a dangerous scarlet hue.

His smile was razor-like, sharp and amused as he held his hand out for Kouki to take.

His expression didn’t change as Kouki got up on his own accord, completely ignoring the hand and standing on his own two legs and the strange man simply inclined his head and turned his attention to Kuroko who was making his way to the pair of them and a sedated pace.

“Tetsu-san, is this yours?”

Kouki shivered, his voice was dark and covered in sin. It wasn’t scratchy or grating, as a matter of fact it was completely smooth, almost melodic, words slipping out of his mouth like well-made silk.  

“Please don’t touch Furihata-kun with your hands, Shoichi-kun.”

The man, Shoichi, smiled, something a bit less threatening and neatly bowed his head when Tetsuya was in front of him and Kouki idly realized that this was another member of the Pantheon Tetsuya had mentioned so much. Shoichi folded his left hand into his kimono sleeve and ruffled Kuroko’s hair with his right, “It’s nice to see you well rested. It’s been a while, wouldn’t you say?”

Kuroko for his part simply removed Shoichi’s hand from his hair and tapped a finger onto the backs of his palm causing a small black crescent moon to bloom into existence there and causing Shoichi to hum in pleasure.

Kouki awkwardly stood to the side and Shoichi proceeded to poke and prod and Tetsuya until the smaller being huffed softly and pulled him down to his level, briskly nipping at his throat, “There will be time for this when I have my body back, Shoichi-kun. For now focus on the matter at hand.”

The raven haired man’s amused smirk was back in place as he stood up to his full height and turned to address Kouki. “Right, _you_.”

Honestly, the brunet had never felt so insulted with a mere two words before, but Shoichi was already walking off, geta clicking nosily as he moved in a seemingly random direction.

“I had high hopes when Tetsu-san mentioned getting someone to vouch for humanity but I suppose he works in mysterious ways.”

Kouki bristled, ‘vouch for humanity’? Tetsuya never mentioned anything like that before.

“Of course, I was just a bit curious to see exactly _what_ had caught my lord’s attention so thoroughly, so changing the course of his portal to sate my curiosity shouldn’t count as a crime, right?”

The blue haired deity hummed in the back of his throat, “Mind your words, Shoichi-kun.”

The raven giggled a bit and took a right, leading them to a steel door that had a appeared from, quite frankly, nowhere. “Of course, milord. This door leads directly to where you want to go. Say hello to Satsuki for me, okay _human_.”

Kouki didn’t know anyone named Satsuki but that man was starting to really get under his skin. He had spoken a grand total of two sentences to him and the brunet was already more than willing to never see him again.

Tetsuya looked back at his friend (Kouki was guessing here, they were really touchy a few moments ago though, so he thought it was a safe guess) and rolled his eyes, “I’ll see you soon. Please tell Kazunari-kun to stop pestering Nigou as well.”

Shoichi simply smiled and nudged him towards the door good-naturedly, “Tell your brother to stop making so much work for us and you’ve got a deal.”

Kouki swore he saw Kuroko smile before he walked through the portal, vision getting blurred with the rainbow-coloured lights that surrounded him as he passed through the gaps in space and time.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #BackOnTrack I feel really good about this. 
> 
> Also, Imayoshi Shoichi is bae. Some people like Akashi, some people like Aomine, me? I love Shoichi. He’s such a conniving little bastard, just… 100% woop.  
> Don’t forget to leave a comment and tell me what you think about the short series and about what you thought about this chapter. 
> 
> Next time, Tetsu and Furihata have a chat.
> 
> See ya~


	13. Re: Boot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Welcome to-- TETSU-KUN?!"

_Shoichi simply smiled and nudged him towards the door good-naturedly, “Tell your brother to stop making so much work for us and you’ve got a deal.”_

_Kouki swore he saw Kuroko smile before he walked through the portal, vision getting blurred with the rainbow-coloured lights that surrounded him as he passed through the gaps in space and time._

* * *

 

Without Tetsuya holding him steady, Kouki crumbled onto the cold ground as soon as his feet hit the concrete. His legs were jelly, unable to hold his weight and his stomach and chest were burning violently. The burning quickly travelled up his throat and he doubled over, retching up a strange deep purple substance that smelled strongly of sulfur and sugar. The over powering scent caused his vision to blur and his eyes began watering, he couldn’t tell heads from tails and his head was swimming painfully.

Then there was a heavy grip on his shoulder forcing him up and away from his vomit and Kuroko’s icy eyes were glaring up at him, his gaze searching over his face and neck.

Kouki’s anger came back with stunning vengeance and he ripped himself from Kuroko’s hold, wobbling slightly as he stood barefooted on the sidewalk. He frowned heavily when he noticed that the moon was shining dimly in the sky, high enough that it could be seen through the spaces in the skyline, which should be impossible because they had spent less than a half an hour in wherever-the-hell they just were. He turned his grimace back onto Kuroko’s cloaked body and pointed to the sky, “Explain.”

Kuroko raised a thin, powdery blue eyebrow at him and Kouki dully noted that Kuroko was unfairly beautiful, “It’s called the moon, Furihata-kun.”

That was it. The last of Kouki’s already silk sheer patience snapped into a million pieces, fluttering off into the inferno that was his annoyance and rage. He took two steps forward and grabbed Kuroko by his shoulders, eyes wild and voice low, “Don’t play smart. What the hell is going on?”

 Kuroko’s calm countenance broke, allowing a small frown to tug at his thin lips. He kept his voice even as he looked directly into Kouki’s eyes, not even flinching as Kouki’s grip began bordering on bruising. “You need to calm down.”

Kouki growled, and shook the smaller being’s fragile shoulders recklessly, angry tears streaming down his face, “I’ve been calm! I’ve been patient with you and you drag me through a gunfight and some weird alternate fucking dimension! I’ve had it. Tell me what the _fuck_ is going on or—“ A wet, grimy cough suddenly forced its way out of Kouki’s lips, halting his tirade and attacking him with whole body shudders, causing him to spit up more of that weird purple liquid. His lungs shook in his chest with the violence of the coughs and a few splatters of the substance found their way onto Kuroko’s pale nose and cheeks.

His tears had started pouring once more and that burning, sulfuric scent permeated his nose. His hands were covered in the slimy, insidious looking substance and his legs caved on him once more, forcing him to kneel in the streets. He tried to hold back his feelings, really he did, but all at once his fear and rage and bitterness flooded their way through him and a choked sob escaped his stained lips as tears collected on his cheeks before sliding to the cool ground below him.

“I need to know,” he whispered, throat still stinging from his impromptu cough session, “Please.”

He heard Kuroko’s shuffling footsteps approaching him, but he ignored it. There was the ruffling of fabric from above him and then there was the warmth of a cloak being placed over his shoulders (he didn’t even know he had started trembling). Frigid, stiff fingers carded gently through his hair and Kouki opened his eyes to see Kuroko’s odd eyes staring down at him, the snowy blue irises glowing eerily in the darkness of night.

Kuroko was humming deeply in his chest, a small, powerful sound that soothed Kouki and made him curl into Kuroko’s touch unconsciously. Kuroko’s left hand gently glided along his jaw, guiding his eyes to Kuroko’s and Kouki took note of the way the usual blazing red rings around his pupils seemed to simmer and cool into a warm vermillion instead. Kuroko leaned down and placed his mouth next to Kouki’s ear, triggering another shiver to travel down his spine completely unrelated to the cold Tokyo air.

“Rest,” he whispered, the words so soft Kouki was straining to hear them even though they were uttered so closely to his ears. The brunet’s limbs fell limp immediately, like a marionette having their strings cut. His mind hazed over and suddenly he felt sleepy. So overwhelmingly sleepy that maybe Kuroko wouldn’t mind if…he jus..t…

* * *

 

Tetsuya huffed as Furihata fell limp in his arms. Humans were so easy to subdue, really.

He felt a bit guilty, resorting to using his power to get him to calm down, but it was much better than having to run through a lengthy explanation that would probably result in him using his power to calm the brunet down anyway.

The small being sighed inwardly and placed his hands underneath Furihata’s knees and against the middle of his back, shifting the sleeping human so that he’d be comfortable to carry on the walk to the temple. Tetsuya had to hand it to Shoichi, he had had no idea how to get from Seirin to Shibuya and now they were in Dogenzaka and just a couple streets away from the temple/ whatever Shigehiro had disguised Seijuurou beloved house as this time, his subordinate was intrusive and slightly out of line, but he supposed it was fine.

Tetsuya turned his attention to the comatose brunet in his hands as Furihata groaned in discomfort, brows furrowed and cheeks flushed. Tetsuya could spot the tips of his fingers purpling from underneath the hem of his coat’s sleeves and he frowned, Furihata had pushed him out of his body so quickly he hadn’t had the chance to flush his poisons from his body completely. The brunet’s body didn’t know what to do with a poison that potent, Tetsuya knew from experience. Human antibodies and cells get contaminated with his toxins and spread through the bloodstream to other organs, anything that touched his poisons would become poisoned themselves and thus the vicious cycle continued.

If only his fingers were beginning to change colour, then Furihata was a very lucky human indeed.

* * *

 

After walking for a bit, Tetsuya’s senses had him stop at a small game shop that sat smooshed in-between a cosplay café and a publishing house. It wasn’t a bad looking place, just underwhelming seeing as last time Shigehiro had seen it prudent to fit into the medieval era by disguising the temple as a large castle, complete with a moat and actual alligators. The building itself was a dark blue with a cream door and a large clear display window on the left of said door.

Tetsuya looked down at Furihata once more and sighed, how was he supposed to knock without his hands?

He spent a few more seconds looking between the door and Furihata before he made his decision and threw him over his shoulder, silently apologizing for jostling his body and reaching for the doorknob.

Surprisingly, the door was open and Tetsuya pushed his way into the neat store that stood beyond.

“See Satsuki, staying open past eight does make a difference.” Shigehiro’s voice washed over Tetsuya like a familiar song. His voice was still slightly rough with deep undertones, lilting with the heaviness of an accent Tetsuya couldn’t quite place. He raised his eyes to see the Messenger of the Heavens facing an open doorway that was covered only in an almost see-through piece of pink cloth, face split wide with a smile and dark eyes glittering under the artificial lighting of the store. His brown hair was longer, curlier too and held up in a messy bun, strands curling delicately around his face and neck.

He heard an equally familiar feminine voice reply impatiently, “Yes, well, congratulations. One customer in four hours will make such an impact.” Satsuki Momoi walked out of the doorway, pink tresses loose and spilling cutely around her face. Her intelligent, nearly crystalline pink eyes were actually sparkling behind the transparent lenses she had on and her curvaceous figure was accentuated by the knee-length, dark blue dress she had on. She had a sunflower stuck behind her ear and Tetsuya took in a breath as she turned to face him.

“Welcome to- TETSU-KUN?!”

He heard the loud, heavy thud of Furihata’s limp body hitting the floor and door before he felt the soft mounds of flesh that were Satsuki’s breasts connecting with his face and stifling him. She smelled heavily of flowers, lavender especially and Tetsuya immediately knew that she had been picking things from the Sky Garden again.

He sighed contentedly and wound his arms around her slender waist turning his head so that he could actually breathe, “I’m home, Satsuki-chan.”

Suddenly he was out of Satsuki’s warm embrace and off the floor, shoved quickly into the crook of Shigehiro’s neck and right shoulder, his nose filling with Shige’s natural scent of rainwater and lime and back crackling a bit and Shigehiro squeezed him tightly. “Welcome back, buddy.”

They stayed hugging for a few brief moments before the tall brunet put him back on the ground and ruffled his hair good-naturedly, “You’ve been pretty busy, huh?”

Tetsuya smiled and pushed his hand off of his head, other hand already pre-occupied with wiping away the tears of happiness that were collecting in Satsuki’s pretty eyes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Shigehiro snorted and Satsuki straightened out, “Oh, we know, Tetsu-kun. You fell out with the original candidate and now you have a new one. Sho-kun told me everything.”

Tetsuya’s face evened out into his usual blank expression as he turned towards the now very twisted body of Furihata Kouki, wincing a bit at the thought of the cramps the human would have after he woke up, “Yes well, we have some things to discuss. Shigehiro-kun, please get Furihata-kun off the floor.”

Shigehiro’s smile widened and he threw Furihata over his head haphazardly, handling his with all the finesse of a man carrying potato bags, “Still using honorifics with me, Tetsu? Really?”

Satsuki grabbed his hand, already leading him through the maze of game shelves and talking about what they had been up to while Tetsuya and the others had been asleep, “You’re still calling me Tetsu. Things don’t change, Shigehiro-kun.”

“Tetsu-kun! Pay attention! Reo-chan and Ko-kun got married and Tatsu-kun and Atsushi live in Italy now, though I heard they were gonna come visit soon…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t have much to say, really. 
> 
> MMphrgg, I’m kinda dead right now. Bye *jumps into a vat of jello and swims away*
> 
> *swims back* Don’t forget to leave a comment on your way out!


	14. A Realistic Ideological Furihata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wake up. Flawless.
> 
> Interrogate a handsome stranger. Flawlessly.
> 
> Accept your fate as the protector of Earth. Erm, no.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, this weekly thing is killing me. 
> 
> I don’t have much to say except I love Shigehiro. Like, the anime didn’t tell us much about him and he didn’t get much panel time in the manga either, but I imagine that he’s the one responsible for Tetsu’s attitude. Like, the two of them had basketball adventures back when they were kids or something. 
> 
> Well, whatever, enjoy~!

_Shigehiro’s smile widened and he threw Furihata over his head haphazardly, handling him with all the finesse of a man carrying potato bags, “Still using honorifics with me, Tetsu? Really?”_

_Satsuki grabbed his hand, already leading him through the maze of game shelves and talking about what they had been up to while Tetsuya and the others had been asleep, “You’re still calling me Tetsu. Things don’t change, Shigehiro-kun.”_

_“Tetsu-kun! Pay attention! Reo-chan and Ko-kun got married and Tatsu-kun and Atsushi live in Italy now, though I heard they were gonna come visit soon…”_

* * *

 

It was dark out when Kouki woke up.

His dark brown eyes fluttered open and his blurry vision slowly cleared enough for him to recognize the starry sky that peeked in from the bay windows to his right. His body felt warm and rested, like he had been sleeping in his mother’s room again and her warmth had seeped through the sheets to wrap around him and there was a damp, cold square of cloth on his forehead.

He wasn’t aware that he had gotten sick, but whatever bug he’d contracted was certainly gone now. He hadn’t felt so at peace since before Kuroko…had kidnapped him.

Suddenly, the peace he had felt down to the marrow of his bones dissipated, tension slowly building in its place. He trailed his eyes around the room to memorize his surroundings and had to stop and gawk. The walls were a clean golden colour, tall bookshelves filled with medical tomes and children’s storybooks sat beside the windows. There was a painting of an ethereal forest at sunset hung above a manual fireplace which held the barely burning embers of the night’s blaze. Upon its mantle sat three photos. The first one was of Kuroko in a very human looking body, blue eyes crinkled in open laughter and delicately pale features illuminated by the light that was pouring in from the right, as he was held gently by an unfamiliar man with shoulder length red hair that had been held up with ribbon. The man’s hair looked as though it was burning, embers fluttering around him and Kuroko as his own deathly crimson eyes leered mischievously at Kuroko. The next picture was of two unfamiliar faces, a man with straight, dark blue hair that brushed the small of his muscled back and dark, brown skin who was sitting by a kotatsu, relaxed and laughing as he cleaned a set of short swords. Sitting to his right, at the head of the kotatsu was another redheaded man. His hair was short and double-toned and his own fierce crimson eyes glittered with mirth as reclined into a pile of pillows behind him. The final picture was of a small child, maybe three or four years old with short silvery hair and wide, dark eyes. He was sitting seiza at a small wooden table, face impassive and relaxed. Kouki thought that he looked an awful lot like Tetsuya and noted that the picture was probably taken without him knowing about it, since he looked engrossed in the small picture book that was in his hands.

 Had Kuroko brought him to his home?

Upon continuing his sweep of the room, he found his bedside table which had a lamp and yet another picture. He took it and sat up in his bed, adjusting the pillows to suit and realized in dim awe that all the pictures were hand painted. This particular picture was of two men, a bright blond whose hair was braided and held in an up-do with an ornate looking glass hairpin and a man with short, jet black hair and bangs long enough to obscure his left eye. They were dressed in complicated clothing, a mix of many different countries’ styles and cloths, but Kouki could see the amount of happiness that was on their faces as they smiled at each other and held up cards both saying ‘He Won’ on them.  

Kouki put the picture back on the stand and sighed, what was he supposed to do now?

“Oh, you woke up,” a sleep heavy voice murmured from his left.

Kouki startled, he hadn’t noticed anyone else in the room, but sure enough, sitting on a wooden chair and wiping his eyes with the backs of his palms, was a man with two-toned brown hair. He looked relaxed, back slouched comfortably and feet stretched onto the circular blue and white rug that covered the floor. Kouki noticed that he wore ridiculous Mario stenciled socks and that he was in a pair of Pokemon pyjamas and couldn’t hold back his snort of amusement.

The man looked up at him and blinked, brown eyes clearing and focusing on Kouki as a strange smile crossed his face and he got up, “How are you feeling?”

Kouki shrugged, too busy trying to figure out who the stranger was to answer. There definitely weren’t any pictures with him hung up. The man clicked his tongue and poured a glass of water from the pitcher that sat on the desk next to him, “I’m going to need you to answer me verbally, you might’ve had a concussion.”

“I feel fine. Well-rested.”

The man handed him the glass and smiled at him, pressing his large hand to his forehead and sighing, “Well, you still feel a bit warm,” he said, clinically removing the damp cloth that had fallen between Kouki’s legs, “Maybe I should give you another dosage of the anti-venom, just to be sure.”

Kouki blinked, “Wait, anti-venom?! I wasn’t poisoned!”

The brunet stooped down to get something from the lowest drawer of the bedside cabinet after taking Kouki’s half empty cup from him, “Yeah, you were. Tetsu accidentally poisoned you.”

He placed a needle and syringe on the tabletop and grabbed a small jar of clear liquid from the middle drawer, hands steady as he sterilized the needle, “I’m Ogiwara, by the way. Nice to finally meet you.”

“Furihata, what do you mean ‘accidentally poisoned’ me?”

Ogiwara carefully stuck the needle into the top of the jar, pulling back the syringe and allowing it to full halfway, “I mean, it’s a side effect of being possessed by him, stretch out your hand please, the poison wasn’t super potent though, so you’re fine.”

Kouki flinched as the needle went into his veins, “A side effect? What do you mean ‘side effect’?”

Ogiwara shrugged and his dark eyes met Kouki’s, “It doesn’t really matter, you’re in the clear as far as side effects go.”

Kouki’s eyebrows furrowed as he frowned, was this something else he wasn’t allowed to know? More secrets that he couldn’t understand? “What side effects?”

Ogiwara rolled his eyes, “You’ll just psych yourself out,”

“What. Side. Effects.”

“Nausea, headaches, body spasms, shortness of breath, fatigue, the possibility of becoming an eldritch monster, blood poisoning and, of course, death, but it depends on whether Tetsu-kun likes you or not,” a new, feminine voice cut in from the doorway.

She was stunning, pink hair held up in a ponytail and falling delicately over her shoulder. Her rose coloured eyes were shining as she looked at Ogiwara and her full lips were pulled into a small, cute smile. She was wearing a simple white dress and red flats and Kouki couldn’t help but stare at the tattoo of a crescent moon that sat innocuously on the junction between her neck and left shoulder.

She walked up to Ogiwara and sharply smacked him in the back of his head, “What did I tell you about stressing out my patients, Shige?”

Ogiwara put his hands in front of him, a wry smile on his lips and dark eyes glittering, “In my defense, I thought he didn’t need that kind of information. ‘s not like Tetsu’ll be in his body again anytime soon, right?”

She rolled her eyes and faced Kouki, small hands ruffling his hair, “I’m sorry, Furihata-san. Shigehiro here doesn’t understand the term ‘bedside manners’,”

“Hey!”

“I’m Momoi Satsuki, it’s very nice to finally meet the first Ambassador of the People.”

“Wait. Wait, I’m not an ambassador, I’m a psychiatrist and I’m pretty sure this was some misunderstanding so—“

Momoi looked like he puppy had been shot, “Tetsu-kun didn’t tell you anything, did he?”

Kouki stopped, “Tell me about what?”

The pink haired girl sighed and turned to Ogiwara, “Shige, go put on some actual clothes and bring him some breakfast.”

Ogiwara blinked, “Breakfast? Satsuki, it’s three in the morning.”

“That’s not the sound of breakfast, Shigehiro~”

“Fine.”

Ogiwara left the door open as he left and Kouki swore he saw a large black…something move to follow him.

Momoi pulled a chair up to his bedside and a soft peach coloured glow began emanating from her fingertips, “How much do you know, about Jirae and Gaia and the Samsara?”

Kouki was entranced by her hands as she created a model of the planet in thin air, “Not much, I guess. Just that Kuroko created Jirae and that there’s a pantheon of gods that govern Gaia.”

She hummed, “Well, let me explain. Earth, as you know it, is the central part of this solar system. A hub planet if you will, filled with precious resources and materials that other planets on this plane of universe require.”

The lights in the room went out and Kouki stared in awe as a small universe spun slowly in the room. Millions of small, twinkling stars blinked across the ceiling. Planets spun slowly, asteroids lazily moved through planetary orbits and there he sat in the middle of all of this.

“When the Earthen Mother created this system, she assigned a resource to each of these planets, Mars has many minerals critical for farming and sustaining plant life, for example. Your Solar System is an auxiliary system to a bigger universe and Earth is a very important part of this auxiliary system.”

“All of the planets, with the exception of Pluto, support many ecosystems of life. Earth, supports the most while possessing many resources that also help sustain the lives of other planetary populations, coal that’s formed in your crust are the food of one particularly adorable species on Uranus, for example.”

“This is all very interesting, but what does any of this have to do with me?”

Suddenly, the lights were back on and the miniature universe disappeared leaving a shocked Satsuki staring at him. She frowned before sitting back down on her chair (Kouki hadn’t even noticed she had gotten up) and crossing her arms underneath her bust, “Well, if you weren’t so impatient I’d get to that part.”

Kouki winced, “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand.”

Her features softened and she stretched a hand out, pink glow pouring from his fingers once more, “Earth’s been supporting life for millions of years and each time there’s always been an alpha race. A race that commandeers the planet’s resources for themselves and build civilizations on the soil. Most of the races that commandeered these soils understood that Earth’s resources weren’t their own but the Earth can only support that much before she begins to tire and so each race has a lifespan. An era to live, so to speak. At the end of that era, Earth is given time to replenish and rejuvenate itself. That’s the Samsara, the Rebirthing Cycle.”

Kouki raised his hand to stop her, “Wait, what happens to the people that are still alive when that era ends?”

Momoi bit her bottom lip and averted her eyes, a bitter smile on her lips “I suppose that would be what you humans call ‘Armageddon.’”

His eyes widened in horror, “You kill them.”

Momoi’s shoulders squared as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, “It’s what has to be done. Anyway, back to you and why you’re here. I’ll be frank, humans are problematic. Never before have we seen a race deplete the resources of the Earth in less than two thousand years but you’ve done it. I have no idea how you managed to even use up the _air_ but you’ve done that too. You’ve enslaved yourselves, murdered yourselves, murdered the other races you were supposed to protect, destroyed years of historical landmarks left behind by the races that preceded you, dug up the tombs of your predecessors and hung them in vast halls as though they were trophies, continue to dig your hands into things that don’t concern you and your list of sins go on and on. The Emperor is at a loss and he usually responds to things he can’t understand by burning them with the fury of a thousand dying suns.”

Kouki stilled, “He wants to end our era.”

Momoi’s eyes hardened as she picked at some dirt lodged beneath her perfect nails, “I’d be lying if I said he was the only one.”

The brunet sighed heavily and leaned back into his pillows, fists clenched underneath the sheets, “What does any of this have to do with me? Why am I here?”

The pink haired woman smiled slyly, eyes sparkling as a small giggle floated from her lips, “Well, that’s the funny part about all this.”

Kouki glared at her, unimpressed and slightly annoyed, “I fail to see how any of this is funny.”

“Yeah, well, when you live forever, you develop a weird sense of humour,” she chided, “You’re here for two reasons, well three if you want to get technical. The first is because the Earthen Mother is fair. When the Emperor requested to start Samsara early she told him to give you humans a fighting chance. We had a debate about what that meant and in the end, came up with a human representative, someone who could prove to us that humanity wasn’t all bad. Tetsu-kun seems to think that you’re that representative for whatever reason, so now you’re no longer a quack. Now you’re the Ambassador of all Humanity, so, no pressure or anything but don’t screw that up.”

“Secondly, as the human rep, you’re first order of business is to convince the Pantheon not to destroy humanity as soon as they’re back on their feet.”

Immediately Kouki sat up in his bed, eyes wide, “What?! How am I supposed to convince a bunch of jaded immortals not to kill us all?!”

Momoi shrugged, “That’s your problem, sweetie.”

Kouki stared at her, “Aren’t supposed to help me? Isn’t this how these things usually go?!”

Momoi frowned, “You have to convince me and Shigehiro-kun too you know. We’ve been awake for these past couple of years, so we know all about you guys first hand.”

“If you’ve been up for so long then you know that we aren’t all bad!”

The pink haired woman glared at Kouki, eyes hard and seeming to ignite with a dark magenta spark, “I never said that humans we all bad, nor did I say that we don’t acknowledge their good deeds but the fact of the matter is, your people are doing too much damage to this planet. Saving a cat from a tree is worth a lot less brownie points when someone else spills gallons of oil into the ocean at the same time.”

Kouki sighed heavily and lay back down into his pillows. What was the hell was he supposed to do? He closed his eyes and groaned, “I don’t suppose there’s a way to get out of this?”

Momoi patted his forehead, relaxing his body despite how quickly his mind was racing and Kouki thought that it must be whatever power she possessed responsible for such a soothing feeling, “You’ve been chosen. It’s as simple and complex as that.”

Kouki opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, eyes listlessly following the lethargically twirling blades of the ceiling fan, “Yeah. Thought so.”

Momoi removed her hand from his head and Kouki heard the drag of the chair against the floors as she got up, “Get some rest,” she called at him from the door, “You can think this over in the morning when Tetsu-kun comes back.”

Kouki heard the door close and exhaled deeply. What was he supposed to do now?

He closed his eyes again, he guessed that there really was no use overthinking it now, the most he could do was rest and deal with it in the morning.

He shifted his body to face the windows and smiled softly at the brilliantly shining skies, a strange sense of peace overcoming him.

 

 

 

 

 

He didn’t even hear the door creak open as Shigehiro peeked through, hair free from its elastic and bangs plastered to his forehead, “I guess that’s a no on the breakfast then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you guys go~ Obligatory exposition chapter completed~!
> 
> It’s kinda sad that I had to write thirteen chapter before you guys got an explanation for what’s going on, but at least Kouki’s in the know. Now, he has to save the world, well just humanity.
> 
> Yeah, good luck there buddy.
> 
> Next chapter: Sleepless in Kaijo (featuring Kise~!!!)
> 
> Don’t forget to comment, my lovelies, it fuels me. Drives me! Makes sure school doesn’t unalive me.


	15. Distant Fields

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ryouta is a bored babe and Tetsuya discovers milkshakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whaaattt?! (Le gasp) Two chapters in a week?! What sorcery is this?!
> 
> I don’t know, I was really pumped to write Kise and Tetsu being reunited and then running the heck away from Kiyoshi and Aida so, here you guys go~!!
> 
> Also, just so guys know, Tetsuya is technically Kise’s older brother, so Kise refers to him as Tetsu-nii, Tetsucchi or if he wants to be annoying, Tetsu-niicchi.
> 
> Enjoy me lovelies~!

_He shifted his body to face the windows and smiled softly at the brilliantly shining skies, a strange sense of peace overcoming him._

_He didn’t even hear the door creak open as Shigehiro peeked through, hair free from its elastic and bangs plastered to his forehead, “I guess that’s a no on the breakfast then.”_ __

* * *

 

**_Penthouse Suite of Nomura Grand Hotel, Kaijo_ **

Kise Ryouta liked to believe that humans weren’t as bad as his brethren thought.

Well, no, that would be a lie, he _knows_ that they’re probably the most destructive race to ever walk Gaia (which was saying something, when he was in his adolescence, giant reptilian monsters the size of skyscrapers were the alpha race), but at least they were innovative and inventive as well. There were a lot of things that he was privy to in the fifteen years he had spent living in a hotel that his fellow deities probably weren’t though, like the fact that tea had become horribly watered down as the eons had passed.

The blond man had pushed his cozy reading chair from the sitting room all the way across the suite to the large windows that overlooked the busy streets and was nursing a mug of what was supposed to be earl grey tea in his hands (though, really, at this point, he was having a better time watching the smoke lazily curl from the cup). He tapped an abstract melody into the cup with the pads of his fingers, ring on his right hand clinking elegantly in time as his luminous amber eyes sparked softly in the pre-morning darkness.

Humans, Ryouta thought, were also so pathetically short-lived.

He’d established the outline of a morning routine for himself when he realized that the heavy anklet that had been fastened around his left foot really did prevent him from leaving the suite door, waking up at two every day and drawing whatever came to his mind in the hard covered sketchbooks Kiyoshi had gotten him. Most days he drew architecture, large sprawling cathedrals with Victorian steeples that seemed to scratch into the sky or the stone temples the druids of his childhood forged, all straight, clean lines and unwavering practicality. Sometimes, he drew his siblings, his melancholic older brother whose darkness settled in a room like his muted presence or his lunatic of a half-brother whose narrow eyes shone brightly with the joy of battle and competition.

Other days, like today however, he sketched his court. He had been seated at the window for hours, smooth hands methodically drawing the soft lines of Tatsuya’s expertly braided hair, poppy and periwinkle petals scattered about the sharp line of his jaw and shoulders and the flowing outlines of Reo, whose elaborate kimonos with its ruffled hem slid down his regal frame like the effortless falling of his harvest leaves. He had drawn the stern face of Yukio, his stubborn eyes and glittering, honest smile etching themselves into his pages like the stitch work of a delicate snowflake along with the relaxed frame of Miyagi, blond hair held in a loose bun atop his head and eyes closed, face free of winkles and furrows as he rode the summer currents.

Whenever he was done with drawing, he’d place his sketchbook back into its spot on his bookshelf and wait for the daily commute to begin.

Despite his outwardly boisterous and energetic appearance, Ryouta was painfully observant. It was one of the only things he had truly loved doing since childhood. He could sit and watch a person go through their idea of a completely uneventful day and be enamored by it. He had quickly learned that one man’s normal was another’s adventure and had begun keeping records of the people that lived and worked in the area. Humans were predictable, creatures of habit, no matter how hard they refuted that notion and after watching someone go about their lives for a month or so, Ryouta had already figured out everything he would ever need to about their mannerisms and upbringing.

Kise Ryouta never forgot a face, after all.

This habit of his had proved to be quite useful. About a year into his captivity, his boredom had reached new heights and he had yearned for something to do. Kiyoshi Teppei, bless his fragile human heart really, had taken note of his veritable palace of notebooks filled with the daily going-ons of about one thousand civilians and had requested his help on a case they were working.

So began his tentative partnership with the Police Force and a really strange pseudo-friendship with the Commissioner of Police.

He would help on high-profile, high-security cases and in return, Kiyoshi widened the field of his travel to the police station that lied in the heart of Kaijo. It actually wasn’t that bad of a gig. Ryouta got to dress in season appropriate clothing and actually tend to the wilting, mishandled flowers in the sad excuse of a community park and the only thing he had to put up with was the horrible human posturing of the officers who thought because his hair was long enough to brush the dimples at the base of his back that he was in any way, shape or form womanly.

Ryouta thought it quaint; sometimes Kiyoshi’s men would forget that he was actually an immortal, nigh powerful being who possessed the ability to make hurricanes from bottled water and tried to order him around. Those men usually ended up atop skyscrapers, carried by the gale force winds that had suddenly blustered through the city or hung by the loops of their belts upon the lightning rod of a building in the middle of an impromptu lightning surge, but he digresses.

Sometimes Ryouta wondered if he could get away with sleeping for a year, his powers were in hibernation mode in any case, but then he would get a vase of flowers from the blushing maiden of a college girl who lived in the apartment complex next to the hotel and he’d be so pleased to have something _alive_ in his penthouse that he would get too excited to go into a stasis.

 Then again, Kaijo _had_ become somewhat of a famous spot now due to his mood swings and the weather that resulted from said mood swings, so maybe Kiyoshi should be thanking him.

Today would be exciting though. Seven days ago, his power had returned full force; filling him with droves of extra energy and making his body vibrate and spark at random intervals. He had already broken the anklet that had sat around his foot by way of a stray bolt of excess lightning lancing through it and frying it beyond repair and now his kitchen was looking a bit more like a tropical jungle with the amount of humidity that curled in its atmosphere. The few plants he had kept in there had grown out of control when he had touched them in passing, his once fragile lilies and vivacious poinsettias now looking like they had been plucked from a forest in the Cretaceous Era rather than being picked up in the floral shop down the street.

In fact, most of his suite was experiencing weather extremes. His bedroom had become a tundra, ice coating his tiled floors and snow soaking his quilt-covered bed. His living room was now definitely a furnace, the air dry enough to parch throats simply by opening the room door. His bathroom was less of a room and more of a miniature ocean held back by both his command and by the wall of greenery that lined the hallways and staircase. There was a waterspout that gushed each time he opened a faucet and there were some impressive cumulonimbus clouds hanging lazily on the ceilings of every room but Ryouta thought nothing of it. His room back home was infinitely worse that this and he felt most comfortable in the controlled chaos anyway.

Yesterday, when he had reclined into his cozy red chair to watch reruns of Voltron on his television set (which had been overrun with some of the liana vines that had crawled their way in from the kitchen), and his appreciation of Shiro’s great figure in that skin-tight space suit was interrupted by a breaking news report on the escape of one of the patients from the Seirin Penitentiary. Apparently, they had escaped before noon, had taken one of the doctors with them and seriously injured a few of the officers that were dispatched to stop them. Even though the news reporter had mentioned something about their personal information being classified, Ryouta already knew perfectly well what had happened.

Actually, he was surprised his brother decided to wait that long to make a move in the first place, especially since he had found out from Kiyoshi that they had kept him in an actual prison. Ryouta had few reasons to dislike humans, especially the ones that he had become closely acquainted to in the past decade and a half, but he did resent the story they had concocted.

Quite a bit, too.

Really, the least they could’ve done was make it a bit more in character, even the vampires in their horrendous cinematic depictions weren’t nearly uncivilized enough to simply awake and massacre. They weren’t monsters. Well, most of them anyway, Ryouta had his suspicions about Daiki.

In any case, there were a lot of things to look forward to today.

Maybe Tetsu-nii would bring Nigou with him.

* * *

 

Upon arriving to Kaijo, Tetsuya Kuroko had made two surprising discoveries.

Number one being that he utterly despised navigating big cities.

After he had arrived in Shibuya and Momoi had rushed Furihata into a random room to tend to his exhaustion and poisoning, Tetsuya had sat down with Shigehiro and had been brought up to speed on all the current events that were taking place in the world. They had spoken in hushed tones in a darkened room in the back of the game shop for hours while Tetsuya reconstructed a body for himself, Shigehiro’s dark eyes blazing in a stubborn glow as he recounted important points as well as his current position in the destruction of humanity debacle.

Tetsuya was pleased at his friend’s neutrality, it coincided with his own opinions, but he knew that it wouldn’t be enough to change his dogmatic mate’s mind.

After he had outfitted himself with a new (woefully temporary) body, Shigehiro had taken the liberty of giving him the whereabouts of the rest of the Pantheon as well as their various states of being. Most of them, most notably Shintarou and Ryouta, were on pretty loose leashes, especially given that Shintarou could destabilize the bonds of air with a snap of his untapped fingers and that Ryouta could easily drain anything of all its bodily fluids through their ears, but Tetsuya figured that their ‘captors’ hadn’t figured it out yet. From what he’d been told and from what he’d felt for himself, his little brother and his mate would be the most difficult to get out, one being kept in a military facility and the other being kept on a weapons testing site respectively.

The phantom had decided that he’d start retrieving them according to location meaning that his first target would be his spitfire of a littlest brother in Ryouta whom was being kept in a penthouse in Kaijo. He had left Shibuya before dawn and had quickly melted into the shadows of the night, reveling in the comforting feeling of absolute darkness as his body assimilated with the network of interconnected anti-reflections once more.

Tetsuya had definitely forgotten how nice it felt to be aware of everything.

Most of his family always assumed that being Jiraenian was like being able to ‘see’ darkness and control it, but it was infinitely more complicated than that. Being Jiraenian was all about sensitivity and response. You were much more attuned to living things because you directly influenced their mortality, you acutely felt every decision every made by a being whether it was as simple as staying in bed or waking early or as important as to kill or not to kill and you felt the effects of said decisions.

Being the King of Jirae meant infinite control over every impulse a being had, physical or spiritual, even your own subordinates. It was a constant pulling in the back of his mind, something that was impossible to ignore, always pushing at him, reminding him of their presence and his power and it could easily drive anyone insane but at the same time, it was soothing. A wash of disjointed feelings and voices that curled around him like his own personal quilt.  It was a strange feeling, having the power to destroy every and anything with the flick of a finger but Tetsuya had slowly gotten over the intensity of the pull as the years had passed, he couldn’t blame his other half’s hesitance to allow him into his mind, Seijuurou was a fair bit younger than him anyway.

All that said, Kaijo was a huge city filled with people and machines. A congregation of people in a small area never really bothered him, everyone felt different, had different impulses, made different decisions. In fact, Tetsuya preferred crowded areas, voices all rushed into one, big shared space in his mind that he would be forced to sit and untangle. It was a small task, nothing more than a relaxing time-waster. He was fond of the different types of people and while, sadly, he held little to no presence on the physical plane, the people who did notice him tended to be incredibly interesting.

It was the other part of the city that bothered him. The mechanical part of the city. Machines, as he had discovered, tended to really interfere with his vision when he travelled through the shadows.

It wasn’t as though he’d never traversed cities before, the druids were known for their complex structures and buildings, but they had built them from stone and gems, naturally occurring elements that still counted as organic matter because they came straight from Gaia itself. Tetsuya could ignore those because they had different frequencies, felt different to him. Manmade machines, built of tampered metal and concrete and plaster, however, just felt dead. All they were to him was empty space little more than cold matter and it was really throwing him off.

There was little plant life in the city save for a large stretch of land somewhere close to what Tetsuya assumed was the centre of Kaijo and everything else was a cold, tangled mess of loud, angry emotion, dead space and pigeons. Shadows were crisscrossing all over the place as well, human shadows getting swallowed by the shadows of the buildings and seeming to disappear from his radar until they stepped out again and his head was aching just watching the chaos unfold.

If he were to attempt to make sense of this mess, he’d be studying the dead aired silence for days. He hadn’t the time or patience and, after phasing his way to Kaijo in the first place, he didn’t have the drive either.

It appeared that he would have to find Ryouta manually.

As in, walk upon crowded streets in the blazing heat, surrounded by metal and plaster and people until he happened upon either Ryouta’s presence or collapsed of sun exhaustion.

Which brought him to his second discovery for the day.

Vanilla milkshakes were the best thing he had ever tasted in his immortal life and he was going to shoot Hyuuga in his foot next time he saw him for never once introducing it to him while he was in captivity.

Currently, he was weaving his way through what Furihata had once described as the ‘morning commute’, nine o clock sun hidden behind the tall stretch of the city’s detestable skyline and attention solely focused on the slice of heaven he had acquired from the caffeine shop that he had passed a few minutes ago. He was dimly aware that he was sticking terribly close to the edge of the sidewalk (and to those metal death traps known as ‘cars’) but he really didn’t care. The vanilla milk drink was so cool and refreshing, the gentle tastes of the vanilla extract floating on his tongue and mixing wonderfully with the cream that had been mixed to give it consistency. The shake didn’t smell too terribly of ice-cream either, the strong scent of his beloved vanilla wafted into his nose. All these things combined creating a melodious symphony of vanilla ecstasy that he would most likely be irrevocably addicted to now that he had tasted the frozen delight. He was definitely introducing this phenomenon to Atsushi when he came home, whenever that might end up being.

He had been so wrapped up in his marveling at the treat that he had barely noticed the heavy press of his brother’s presence surrounding and prodding at his own hushed aura. It had taken the small tragedy of his shake being consumed in its entirety for him to notice the decidedly pouty air Ryouta’s usually energetic power had taken after it had been ignored. The ancient being allowed a minute smile to cross his pale features as he allowed his presence to interweave itself with his brother’s until it was back to pressing childishly at his back, guiding him in the direction of a large, glass coated building that sat regally between an apartment complex and a small bookshelf.

Well, Tetsuya thought to himself as he studied the _Nomura Grand Hotel,_ he had enjoyed his relative peace while it had lasted. Ryouta would most likely occupy his attention for some time but he would be imperative for retrieving Shintarou.

Tetsuya somberly threw his empty milkshake cup into a nearby bin as the automatic door opened to let him in.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really happy now. Kise is like, my favorite member of the MiraGen (bar Akashi-sama of course) and he gets to be here.   
> Of course, Kise is changed as well, much like Tetsu himself (he’s just a tad more sadistic. Maybe a bit jaded, but all of them are at this point) he’s still super bae Kise though and next chapter we get to see them interact with eachother. 
> 
> Little note, I was reading a bunch of AkaFuri fics out of sheer curiosity and I’m kinda mad. Furi’s characterized as either really REALLY anxious or really sassy with anxiety problems and I just…can’t.
> 
> I kinda understand why, Furihata’s definitely timid and he’s a bit flighty, but I didn’t think he was that extremely nervous, especially since, while he can’t be characterized as brave, like at all, he still has a lot of guts. Kouki’s a really observant guy and he’s horribly aware of his own power and limitation in comparison to the GoM, so he’s understandably really cautious. He knows he can’t defeat them by himself and so starting a fight isn’t on his agenda, it’s the same thing as a Shounen protagonist stopping cold when the main bad guy appears at the start of their story, he’s petrified at their power in comparison to his and knows that starting a fight’d be dumb. Besides, if Kouki was really that incredibly nervous and socially messy then he wouldn’t really be able to handle the pressure of being subbed in for the Rakuzan game, never mind actually tailing Akashi when he’s in his element and commandeering the court. 
> 
> Like, I know my Furihata is super OoC, he’s not very nervous and such, but he is ridiculously observant and cautious and I feel like that should make up for it. 
> 
> Rant Over.
> 
> I don’t know, maybe I’m reading it incorrectly, or maybe I’m reading Furihata incorrectly, but I really don’t agree with the fandom accepted characterization of my boy. Like, yeah he’s a Chihuahua, but Chihuahuas are fierce dogs, mate. Most small dogs are and Kouki strikes me as a small pup with a lionheart (despite all of his pre and postgame shivers)
> 
> In other news, I think my mean word count for these chapters have steadily worked their way up to 3000+ words per chapter and I’m scared that by the time we get to chapter twenty, it’ll be up to 4000. 
> 
> What is this verse even doing to me?


	16. Sacred Spear Explosion Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kise cleans and drinks some tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, so late, SO LATE! I’m so sorry, my friends, school has really picked up the pace and I’m drowning in schoolwork and assignments and actual rain (it’s been raining for like, two days now…) I’m really sorry, I wanted to update sooner but, alas, I had a crud ton of things to get done so this had to take a back seat. 
> 
> I’ll try to be a bit more consistent with updates (I really wanna maintain the once weekly thing!)  
> In other news, I had a paper to write with the topic being ‘Intensity’ and I literally described the relationship between Ahomine and Bakagami. Well, whatever, I got full marks on it and my teacher was really impressed (I’m pretty sure she didn’t figure out that I was describing the illicit relationship between two fictional characters) so I’m very happy about that.
> 
> Also, WHY HAVE OVER 2000 PEOPLE READ THIS?! WHAT? How? WHEN?! I didn’t think so many people liked this verse, but alas, I have so many people subscribed and bookmarking this work (I see all of you lovely personas. I love you too!) and I just feel all fuzzy in my soul. 
> 
> Ah, enjoy Kise being Kise-ly in this chap~~

_Well, Tetsuya thought to himself as he studied the Nomura Grand Hotel; he had enjoyed his relative peace while it had lasted. Ryouta would most likely occupy his attention for some time but he would be imperative for retrieving Shintarou._

_Tetsuya somberly threw his empty milkshake cup into a nearby bin as the automatic door opened to let him in._

* * *

 

Ryouta had sat at the window for a good two hours after he had finished his cup of tea, pale legs propped comfortably on the white frame and honey eyes lazily scanning the ant-like people below him. He had managed to comb his golden tresses into something resembling a fishtailed braid but quickly got annoyed with the silky hair as it refused to stay plaited. He’d also managed to amuse himself a bit by throwing balls of water at a couple of the punks that enjoyed vandalizing the walls of the coffee shop that sat across the street from the hotel.

He was beginning to contemplate taking a nap (or a walk) when he felt the blotted, melancholic air of his beloved brother encroach into his territory.

Tetsuya really hadn’t changed much if his aura was to be believed. It was still heavy, a cloud of purpose tinged with the bitter tang of sorrow he wore as a blanket around him like an old, comfortable coat. Ryouta couldn’t tell his precise location from his building (he wasn’t Shincchi or Atsucchi) but he could tell that his brother was incredibly confused. His aura was restless, moving in small, irregular patterns before double-backing to the western train station and pausing for a few moments. It was kind of amusing, Ryouta could almost imagine his pale face scrunched up in confusion, okay, well maybe not ‘scrunched up’ per say. Tetsu-nii rarely allowed his emotions to show blatantly on his face, but his light eyebrows would be furrowed and his thin, blue lips would be pulled into a near pout as his pretty moonlit eyes searched for a way to go.

Ryouta decided that he’d let his brother figure it out, it was only five in the morning after all, Tetsu-nii would find him out of necessity sooner or later. The blond leaned his upper body out of the window, loose, fairy gold locks floating gently on the light breeze that was blowing around him, he didn’t think Tetsu-nii wanted a repeat of the ‘Miyaji Incident’ at any rate.

He inhaled deeply and allowed a smile to etch itself into his face; he should at least clean up, right?

* * *

 

The blond deity got to work after that, meandering into his frigid bedroom and picking out a pretty traditional Japanese hairpin that looked like it was fashioned from the windows of a cathedral. The pin itself was made of a sleek ebony material that was smoothened and polished to absolute perfection while the decorations hat were attached to the pin glimmered beautifully in a harmonic contrast. The decoration was a complicated looking lily, its outermost petals fashioned from bright red stained glass that split the light around itself to create a vermillion halo. The middle and deepest petals were made of opaque white and green glass and were arranged in such a way that one could see the rainbows of refracted light arching between the two layers of petals.

Ryouta looked at himself in the mirror and hummed a cute pop song he had heard from the radio a few days ago as he fixed his hair into an elegantly messy topknot using the heavy hairpin to tie it in place. He had only pulled hair from the crown of his head up choosing to leave the rest in long silken rivers around him but after scrutinizing his hair’s length (and noting absently that he’d have to trim the ends again) decided to grab the small, orange rubber bands he kept on his bureau and plait the loose hair into a set of cornrows, just to keep them out of his way.

By the time he was finished wrangling his hair into his preferred hairstyle, it was already six in the morning and he could feel Tetsu-nii was moving in straight, confident lines, even though he was moving quite a bit slower than his usual brisk walking pace.

He huffed and got up from his stool, stretching his lithe muscles languidly and popping a few of  the lazy joints that had relaxed n the hour and a half he had spent sitting to do his hair. A stray snowflake landed on his nose and Ryouta was reminded that he did have to clean up his room before his brother arrived, Tetsu-nii was incredibly stubborn about mothering both him and his  half-brother and he absolutely hated it when their rooms were filthy. Ryouta could already see him wrinkling his cute nose in distaste as he walked into the humidity that was plaguing his elevator room.  

The blond clapped his hands to his face and rotated his shoulders on their axis, right, time to actually get to work.

* * *

 

 Ryouta started in his bedroom, the snow had been falling in a lazy drift for almost three days and had frozen the windows shut as well as turned his tiles into glacier ice. He snapped his fingers together, creating a small scarlet spark that evolved into a dry, heated current of air that curled around the tips of his fingers like an oven mitt. He slid across his icy floor, smile firmly on his face as he stretched his hands out and heated the air around him creating a difference in the air fronts in his room.

He could feel the shifting pressures dance around each other, the tremulous pressures slowly building and swirling in a beautiful age-old dance. Ryouta sniffed as his warmed hands managed to pry open the windows and let the dry autumn air into his room, the warm wind rushing in and completing the reaction he was hoping for.

A heavy shower of rain poured from the clouds that floated on his ceiling, drenching his bed and floor and melting the rest of the ice that covered his room. He tapped his fingers against the pane of his now opened window, counting backward from twenty in his mind with his eyes closed. When he reached ten, yellow lightning began wrapping around his fingers and wrist, the electricity restless and aggravated. Ryouta frowned as he looked down at his hands, he’d been releasing a lot of electricity lately, it was pretty inconvenient, especially at a time like this.

He turned and peaked his head out of the window, hands carefully tucked to his chest to prevent them from touching anything and searched for the closest cloud. The blond cursed when he noticed how high the clouds were and turned his attention back to his hands cursing even louder when he heard his fingers actually buzzing with the sheer volume of lightning that was coiled around them.

A quick glance back at the clouds made his decision for him, he bit his lip and narrowed his eyes, counting to three before striking upwards with his arms, firing the bolts of stray electricity past the lightning rod of the building next to his, just to syphon some of the power out of the bolts. He immediately clasped his hands to his ears, counting to four and laughing like a child when a violent rumble of thunder roared so intensely that his room shook.

He rolled his eyes and clapped his hands, dispersing the clouds that still poured rain onto his sheets and floor. He reached up to his hairpin and touched one of the outermost petals, a white light illuminating the petal as he pulled a long glass maestro’s baton from the petal. Ryouta smiled, a childishly innocent twist of his full lips as he twirled the baton around his fingers skillfully, a white wave of light irradiating from the tip and releasing a gust of pure heat energy.

His half-brother had done a lot of dumb things over his lifespan but getting him an iriditz from his last trip to the Carina constellation was not one of them.

Drying his room was an incredibly simple ordeal with the baton and Ryouta huffed as he stood in a clean room. Great, now just the entire rest of his penthouse to get done.

* * *

 

By nine most of his penthouse was cleaned and in regular functioning order (minus the Leviathan that now sat in the bathtub, of course) and Ryouta was full of energy. He hadn’t gotten a chance to move that much in fifteen years and all he did was do a bit of cleaning. He was pretty sure he was producing so much electricity because he was super inactive, his body was made to move continuously with little to no breaks in between.

Currently, he was floating above his couch in his newly temperate living room playing with the iriditz by separating the waves of light and braided them creating loose streamers of pure light that flickered around him before they mixed and radiated out of his room. His half-brother teaching him how to split light into its components was also not a dumb decision.

Then Ryouta heard his elevator go off and heard the tip-topping of a very familiar pair of high heels as well as the thunking of an even more familiar pair of formal dress shoes.

He wasn’t going to move, if they were going to intrude on his day off, then they could very well deal with a shirtless him in dark blue knee high socks and a pair of basketball shorts he had found at the bottom of his drawers (why’d he even have basketball shorts? He didn’t play, didn’t really want to learn either).

The living room door slammed open and Ryouta allowed a lazy smirk to crawl across his face as the near thunderous-faced Aida Riko walked through the door, all sharp black blazer and pinstripe pencil skirt. Her fierce eyes were red-rimmed, like she had spent some time crying and her frown was severe. She walked straight into the room, back straight and heels clicking menacingly, her expression getting more and more terrifying the closer she got to the blond deity and Ryouta would never admit it, but he felt a small shudder run down his spine.

Honey eyes focused explicitly on her as she stopped directly in front of his face, playful amber meeting stormy chocolate brown. They stared at each other for a bit, Aida’s expression had shifted from murderous to betrayed to murderously betrayed and Ryouta opened his mouth to break the ice but was cut off by a tight tug on his precious hair and a stinging, awful pain in his scalp.

Aida had tangled her hands in his braids and pulled him roughly towards her, forcing his chiseled face down to hers and glaring at him, completely uncaring of the fact that he could smite her right then and there.

“What did you do to him?”

Ryouta’s hair was killing him, the pain was pretty severe seeing as he had a sensitive scalp but Aida wasn’t tolerating silence, tightening her grip to the point of forcing involuntary tears to prick at his eyes. Ryouta met her eyes, brow narrowed and face clenched in agony that dissipated as soon as he saw her eyes.

Aida was holding back tears and failing miserably, the treasonous things falling and trailing down her cheeks. Her lips were bitten almost like she had worried them down over time and her face was pale.

Ryouta’s face softened and he raised his hand to rest it on top of hers in his hair. He didn’t care much for humanity, but there were people that he had begun considering as precious. Aida Riko was one of those people.

Aida tightened her grip again and Ryouta had to bite back a hiss, “Tell me what happened to him,” she demanded softly, fury filling her voice.

Ryouta tightened his grip atop hers, “Let go of my hair, Aidacchi.”

“Tell me what happened to him.”

Ryouta sighed and raised his other hand, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with her stubbornness right now, besides, Tetsucchi was in the building and if he walked in on this, Ryouta was pretty sure she’d be joining her husband in the ICU. He quickly tapped her neck and interrupted the signals between her neurons, causing her to involuntarily let go of his hair with a startled gasp.

Ryouta sighed in relief; damn she had a grip on her, and nodded towards Kiyoshi who was standing in the doorway. He looked down at Aida who was cradling her arm to her bosom and glaring up at him through soaked lashes and grumbled under his breath, “Come on, I’ll make you two some tea.”

Suddenly Aida was grabbing at him again and Ryouta caught her pale hand in two fingers, eyes crackling in irritation. “Calm down, Aidacchi. I’ll go get the tea.”

* * *

 

They sat in a painful silence in the dining room, Ryouta sitting atop the coffee table in a pair of white jeans and a dark blue button up shirt that he had rolled up to his sleeves, Aida glaring at him on the ottoman and Kiyoshi sitting awkwardly on the only chair in the room. The blond deity had loosened his plaits so his hair was spilled in delicate waves of golden yellow around him as he irritably massaged his sore scalp. “Now,” he began, voice kept carefully neutral despite the dirty looks he shot Aida for hurting him so deeply, “Why are you here?”

That, evidently, was the wrong question to ask as Aida’s hold on her teacup tightened to the point of making the poor cup quiver but Kiyoshi, ever the angel, quickly and smoothly cut in, “We want to know what’s happening to Junpei.”

Ryouta raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his tea, last he checked, even though Tetsuya wasn’t fond of the brunet he didn’t dislike him enough to kill him or even turn him into a monster. Maybe Ryouta had underestimated just how mad Tetsucchi was at the human. “Has he grown a new pair of legs or started growing wings?”

Aida looked offended and slammed her teacup down on the table, “Are you making fun of us?”

Ryouta sipped his tea once more, unimpressed, “No, it’s a very real possibility. He was possessed by Tetsu-nii, anything’s possible at this point.”

Kiyoshi and Aida shared a look between themselves; “He was possessed?” came Kiyoshi’s quiet whisper.

Ryouta hummed into the rim of his cup, he could feel Tetsucchi’s presence steadily approaching. He smiled, his brother had deigned to take the stairs to the top like a true hipster.

He turned his attention back to the humans who were watching him closely and sighed, placing his teacup down on the coaster, “Listen, you two, you’re out of time.”

Aida clenched her jaw. “We know. That’s not what we came here to hear.”

Ryouta shook his head, “No, you’re really out of time.”

Kiyoshi blinked, “We know that, Kise-san. That’s not why we’re here.”

The elevator trilled and Ryouta jumped off the coffee table, knowing he had the attention of the two humans. He finished off his tea and beamed at the muted footsteps that shuffled towards the dining room door, inwardly snickering at the tense shoulders and bated breath of his two guests.

The door opened revealing the small, pale figure of his brother, baby blue eyes blank and expression monotone. He looked around the room and his eyes zeroed in on the teacups. He looked back at Ryouta who was practically vibrating on the spot and shot him a small, tranquil smile, “I’d like a cup of tea as well, please.”

Ryouta felt a tiny part of him shatter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, poor babe. He was so excited too…
> 
> I’m not really pleased with this chapter? Like, I don’t know, I just feel like it’s unsatisfactory. Maybe it’s cause I haven’t written in the verse in a while.. 
> 
> Don’t forget to tell me what you thought! Next chapter: Ryouta and Tetsu: Reunited at Last!


	17. Sunshine Is Brief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea is had. 
> 
> So are conversations.
> 
> One of these things is explosive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, once again, I may or may not be writing this outside of curfew, but I had to update at least once before I disappeared until June. I’ll try my absolute hardest to have some stuff up for AkaKuro Week 2k17 but no promises.
> 
> Anyway, how has your guys’ life been? These boys are still going strong, so hopefully that’s enough to get you guys to smile today~!
> 
> Enjoy~~

_The elevator trilled and Ryouta jumped off the coffee table, knowing he had the attention of the two humans. He finished off his tea and beamed at the muted footsteps that shuffled towards the dining room door, inwardly snickering at the tense shoulders and bated breath of his two guests._

_The door opened revealing the small, pale figure of his brother, baby blue eyes blank and expression monotone. He looked around the room and his eyes zeroed in on the teacups. He looked back at Ryouta who was practically vibrating on the spot and shot him a small, tranquil smile, “I’d like a cup of tea as well, please.”_

_Ryouta felt a tiny part of him shatter._

* * *

 

Tetsuya wasn’t really sure what to expect when he ascended into Ryouta’s room. His brother was notorious for hiding many things, it was part of his fickle nature, but Aida Riko and Kiyoshi Teppei, two humans he really held no sort of fondness for, was definitely not it.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t fair, he was… tolerant of Teppei. The man had made mistakes, yes, but he had also spent quite a lot of time trying to atone for said mistakes. He had been the only one to even attempt talking to him throughout his 15 year imprisonment and Tetsuya wasn’t nearly as petty as his subordinates made him out to be. Teppei still counted as an acquaintance, at least.

Riko on the other hand. Well, the less said about her the better.

This fact was not helped in any way with the manner in which Riko attacked him as soon as he entered his brother’s abode.

He had only expressed his interest in having a cup of tea after his troubles navigating through the concrete jungle to find his sibling after fifteen years apart when the woman, this audacious _human,_ rushed up to him with the intent of assaulting him with enough force to make him bleed. Tetsuya was really beginning to tire of their misplaced entitlement, and he had only been free for roughly 48 hours.

Tetsuya held onto her arm, blank eyes curious and face straight as he took in her fierce expression. “Hello, Riko-san.”

She growled at him, twisting her normally attractive face into something hate filled and angry, “It’s _Hyuuga_ now, you monster.” She roughly yanked at her arm and Tetsuya allowed her to pull free, smirking a bit at her stumble as her force overshot her body.

Tetsuya shrugged, “I see. Congratulations on your union.”

That was seemingly the wrong thing to say as the woman immediately lunged at Tetsuya once more, swiping his cheek with her nails before Kiyoshi restrained her by her midsection. He looked down at Tetsuya and smiled nervously, his warm brown eyes silently asking his forgiveness and Tetsuya, ever susceptible to the gentle man’s actions, found himself nodding his acquiescence.

Ryouta picked that moment to walk back into the room, a piping hot cup of vanilla bean tea on a very beautiful Chinese ceramic saucer held carefully in his hands. His beaming smile fell as he took in the scene and he sighed heavily, “Really Tetsu-nii, couldn’t you control yourself for five minutes?”

* * *

 

Ryouta had them all sit down at his dinner table with a stern warning not to break any furniture or bones in that order. Riko (because she would always be Riko in Tetsuya’s mind) was glaring rather heatedly at him, fingers quaking in anger and disgust and mind a storm of murderous thoughts and threats. Kiyoshi, Satsuki bless his heart, was trying his best to placate her. Ryouta, whether it was because he truly didn’t care or just couldn’t be bothered to care, sat cheerfully at the head of table with a placid smile on his face and a sharp twinkle of amusement in his glimmering eyes.

It took Riko accidentally dropping a lump of salt into his tea as she passed behind him for him to become irritated enough to inquire behind her animosity. She stopped, her entire body tense with restrained fury, “I’m sorry but should I be grateful to you for putting my husband into critical care?”

Tetsuya’s thin lips curled into a small frown, did she not expect him to have his retribution? After what they had done to him and to his kin, was he supposed to have let Hyuuga off in one piece? He was alive, was he not? And she was mad at him over what he had done to Hyuuga?

Laughable.

Tetsuya tightened his grip on his cup of salty tea, “You should be thankful that he isn’t dead. The thought had crossed my mind quite a few times.”

Riko’s eyes flared as she pounded the table, “What did he do to you to deserve what you’ve done to him?!”

“Besides imprisoning me in a mirror box for fifteen odd years and separating my family and kinsmen after I trusted him? Nothing.”

Whatever she was going to say after that died on her tongue and Tetsuya had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. “If I wished him dead, he would be. There is no getting past that. Be grateful that I did not finish him out of resentment and preserved him out of necessity.”

Tetsuya stood up from his chair, the squeal of the wood against Ryouta’s tiled floors echoing in the tense silence, “Ryouta-kun?” He tilted his head in the direction of the door, “Whenever you’re ready.”

The blond perked up, eyes alight, “Right! Let me just grab a couple souvenirs.”

Riko stood up as Ryouta left in the direction of what Tetsuya assumed was his bedroom. She looked at him with her eyes narrowed and shared a brief glance at Kiyoshi before taking a deep breath. ”What are you planning to do? Why take out my husband?”

This time Tetsuya did roll his eyes, did the memory of humans really deteriorate that drastically during the period of time he slept? He was almost explicitly sure he had explained all this to them before. “Hyuuga-san was a hindrance. He would have gotten in the way so I purposely decommissioned him.”

Ryouta’s golden hair flashed from beyond the open doorway and Tetsuya started shuffling towards the door as well. He turned back to address Riko, eyes unsympathetic as he spoke, “I suggest you don’t get in my way either, Riko-san. I will have no such reservations about taking your life should the opportunity arise.” He couldn’t quite help the small smile that tugged at his lips, “You are… unimportant in the scope of things.” He then faced Kiyoshi, “Kiyoshi-san, I would like you to deliver a message to Akashi-kun for me.”

The brunet was obviously not expecting to be spoken to and startled badly when he was addressed. He took a breath and calmed himself, “Should I write it down?”

Tetsuya shrugged half-heartedly, “If you think you’ll forget.”

Kiyoshi was in the middle of grabbing his pen from his pocket when Ryouta appeared behind Tetsuya and laid his chin atop Tetsuya’s head, arms draped lightly over Tetsuya’s shoulders, “Ready~”

Tetsuya had to fight his smile but shook his brother off of him, “Please tell him that there’ll be a fireworks festival in Rakuzan in two weeks. I’m personally inviting him.”

Kiyoshi blinked at the message but penned it down nonetheless. By the time he looked up to confirm that there was nothing else to be said, both he and Riko were the only people left in the hotel room.

* * *

 

In the elevator, Ryouta was silent and sober, like a switch had been flipped, killing his playful mood.

Tetsuya was thankful for the quiet, his head was aching after sorting out both Riko’s murderous screams and Kiyoshi’s fearful worrying but he knew from the throbbing in his cheek that the scratch hadn’t healed. He had briefly wondered if there would be any adverse effects on his person after spending so much time in a silver lined room with nothing but his light scattered reflection and the burn of the ultraviolent lights on his back, but he had hoped that the damages would be minor.

He heard Ryouta inhale. “I’m not going to say anything.”

Tetsuya frowned, “Yet you speak.”

His brother leaned solidly against the steel of the elevator wall and crossed his arms, his fair coloured braid falling lightly across his arms and chest. “I’m definitely not going to say ‘I told you so’.”

Tetsuya froze as the elevator door dinged cheerfully and Ryouta walked ahead. He really didn’t have the energy to deal with this right now. Maybe when they were back in Shibuya and he could have Satsuki fix him some of her purifying tea, but not now.

He strode out of the elevator, eyes blank, “Ryouta, now’s not the time.”

Ryouta turned around, obviously ignoring him, a smirk curling its way across his chiseled face. “I mean it’s not like Shintaroucchi or Daikicchi or Taigacchi warned you or anything. Not as though I asked you if you were sure about leaving Chihiro alone for a trust exercise.”

“Ryouta-kun, _please_ -“

“And look where that’s gotten us. Imprisoned and scattered and hurt. Good job, _brother_.”

“Ryouta.”

The Patron of the Sky was smiling, a small, dangerously sharp thing that cut Tetsuya’s frigid heart deeper than any crazy woman could. His amber eyes had frosted over to something callous and his shoulders were rigid like he was itching to lance an arc of lightning at Tetsuya and watch while he crumbled like cheap aluminum.

He walked over to Tetsuya and kneeled in front of him, his eyes imposing as his palm tenderly caressed his injured cheek, “What would Akashicchi do if he knew that they put silver in your veins?”

Tetsuya placed his cold hand over his brother’s, “They didn’t.”

Ryouta’s smile was like a blade upon his face, the smooth pad of the thumb running over Tetsuya's open wound, “Then why aren’t you healing?”

He stood up and turned around, walking out the door and into the mid-morning sun with little fanfare. Tetsuya stared at the door for a second before pulling up his hood and forcefully ignoring the irritated hum that pressed incessantly into his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehehee, Hi Kise, welcome to the story bro. 
> 
> Bet you guys were expecting him to be all sunshine and rainbows huh. Nope, he and his big bro have a couple things to work out first. In other news, Happy Early Easter to everyone who celebrates it (because I honestly don’t know if I’ll have anything out before June or maybe April, but the sentiment is still there)
> 
> See you guys in the next chapter and thank you very much to everyone who continue supporting me, even though updates are few and far between now.


	18. No Return City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Furihata and Shigehiro figure stuff out. 
> 
> Together.
> 
> Kinda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey, what’s up, how’s it hanging, and other things like that. It brings me great pride to announce that I am officially done with school (Until September, at least) so, of course, that means RELIABLE UPDATE SCHEDULES SON! (oooohhhh) 
> 
> Really though, now that I don’t have school eating up my time, I’m free to write all day. So look forward to updates like twice a week or something.
> 
> Now please, enjoy~

**** _He walked over to Tetsuya and kneeled in front of him, his eyes imposing as his palm tenderly caressed his injured cheek, “What would Akashicchi do if he knew that they put silver in your veins?”_

_Tetsuya placed his cold hand over his brother’s, “They didn’t.”_

_Ryouta’s smile was like a blade upon his face, “Then why aren’t you healing?”_

_He stood up and turned around, walking out the door and into the mid-morning sun with little fanfare. Tetsuya stared at the door for a second before pulling up his hood and forcefully ignoring the irritated hum that pressed into his mind._

* * *

_Somewhere in Rakuzan District, Tokyo_

He stood in front of the large, double-screened windows, hair still wet and dripping from his bath and towel slung artfully across his shoulders as he listened to the man on the other side of the phone. He was getting irritated, his other half was usually very punctual and even though they had made plans for his own arrival to Shibuya, he was getting antsy just sitting around and waiting. 

A small smile flitted cross his face, if his Tetsuya were here he would chide him for being so impatient.

“Send him up, Sakurai. He’ll be the last person I see today.”

A string of pleased apologies flowed through his speaker and he hung the phone up. Truly, either humans were too apologetic or not apologetic at all.

He strode to his quarters to get dressed, lightly ruffling his fiery hair as he dried it. Absently, his fingers rubbed at the dark tattoo of a crescent moon that sat at the base of his neck above his heart and immediately a jolt of discomfort flowed through him. He paused. Unusual.

He walked quickly to his room and sat on his bed, eyes closing as he prepared himself to tap into the eons old bond he shared with Tetsuya.

A deep breath in. Two deep breaths out. Focus.

He didn’t have many words to describe the feeling of his bond with Tetsuya. It was like being permitted direct entry into the soul of his mate. A place where nothing was hidden, where Tetsuya’s emotions became his emotions, where their thoughts became one. The ultimate vulnerability.

It was thrilling, comforting, burning, burning, _why was it so hot?_

Tetsuya was in pain.

He was confused, there was little on Gaea that could cause writhing discomfort and sincere displeasure from the Jiraenean King and the things that could were rare, naturally occurring substances like diamond and silver. Knowing his Tetsuya, he would be continuing dutifully with their plans despite the fact that the foreign body would flow through his veins and slowly erode away at his tether to physical plane until he had little choice but to return to Jirae.

He frowned. This would push them back by at least two weeks.

A knock on his door pulled him out of his thoughts and his frown deepened. He was in no longer in a good mood.

His eyes flashed an eerie gold as he moved his hand away from his neck. He would have to summon Sataniel later if he was going to catch his beloved before he left for his home realm it would seem.

He clenched his fist, his scowl thunderous as another flash of discomfort lanced through him. The heavy knock echoed throughout his room again and the thought of controlling his urge to eviscerate the mortal audacious enough to interrupt his musings flew from his mind. He raised his fist, prepared to send a spear of light arcing through the air and straight through the head of the unfortunate soul on the other side, but his golden eyes caught the flicker of his obsidian ring and he stopped.

How unsightly. Had being cooped up for so long really have such a profound effect on him? If Tetsuya were here he’d scoff at his behavior and flick at his forehead, his exquisite eyes shimmering with dark humour and a hint of second hand embarrassment. He took a handful of seconds to compose himself.

A deep breath in. Two breaths out.

The heavy knock shook his door and a single perfectly trimmed eyebrow twitched in aggravation.

Right. Mortal annoyance first then he’d see about Sataniel and his beloved.

 

* * *

His eyes opened slowly, the soft grey of the ceiling meeting him and the first thought that went through his head was that this definitely wasn’t his bedroom.

Kouki took a moment to collect himself, he was at Kuroko’s home, somewhere in Shibuya if his memory served. Within the past twenty four hours, he had been possessed, poisoned, harassed, knocked out _twice_ and received the revelation that the world was going to end and he was the only one who could stop it. So he was having a good time.

He sat up in the bed and instantly felt like he had been resting for three weeks straight. His muscles felt warm, his feet felt like they had been massaged a hundred times, he didn’t even feel like he had thrown up. Miss Momoi was some sort of healer, jeez.

A quick peek at the window told him that he couldn’t have been out for longer than a few hours since it was still dark, but his body’s internal clock was insisting that he had definitely been asleep for more than ten hours at least. He quickly looked over the room once more to ensure that he was actually alone before taking a deep breath and allowing all of his frustrations to pour in the form of tears.

The hot drops fell onto his hands as he clasped his palms over his mouth, hiccupping small breaths. He was supposed to stop a bunch of jaded deities from ending the world. _Him._ He couldn’t even drive a car. He couldn’t hold on to a girlfriend. He was barely a _man_ never mind someone brave enough to _stop gods._

His breathing became shallower as he cried harder, nearly sobbing as he hugged his shoulders. What was he going to do? What _could_ he do? He was so far out of his depth he was about to drown. It’s not like he could tell them to choose someone else or tell them to postpone the apocalypse but at the same time he wasn’t prepared for something like this. He wasn’t some world saving hero, he was just Furihata Kouki. He was the guy who was so afraid of new things that he’d ordered the same thing at the same bakery for almost three years. The guy who cried when his patients cried. The guy who was fighting his anxiety with snark and scathing remarks and an open mind but who was so horrified by the thought of anything different that he avoided deviation religiously.

What was _he_ supposed to do? **_What was he supposed to do?!_**

“Am I interrupting something here?”

Kouki’s head shot up, eyes still swimming with tears as he vaguely registered the figure of Ogiwara who was carrying a tray with what looked like toasted bread, cheese and sausages. The brunet looked a bit worried but he closed the door behind him, an uneasy smile tugging at his lips.

Kouki really couldn’t muster up the strength to stop crying, his breaths were coming in at a soft staccato, his eyes rapidly filling with even more tears, though they were mostly embarrassed tears since he couldn’t believe was sobbing in front a deity.

Ogiwara placed the tray down on the bedside table and unfolded one of the small iron chairs that had been lined up against the wall, sitting down and offering a purple handkerchief all in one motion. His dark eyes were sharp but his posture relaxed and he appraised Kouki for a few seconds before placing a warm hand in his hair and ruffling it a bit. Kouki started, jumpy from his crying and even more so since he had no idea if he meant him harm or not. Ogiwara simply kept his hand in his hair, his smile warming slightly as Kouki’s crying calmed back down to small hiccups and tears that were quickly caught by the handkerchief.

They sat in silence for a while, whether it was minutes or hours Kouki didn’t really know, but he was glad for the comfort, even if it was sudden and strangely intimate.

Kouki had stopped crying enough for him to form thoughts other than ‘Oh God why’ and ‘what do I do now?’ and was now spiraling down a path paved with ‘shit now I know he thinks I’m the wrong choice’ and ‘goddamnit Kouki couldn’t you have broken down without the god next to you?’. Ogiwara seemed to understand that he was done crying and took his hand from his hair after one last parting ruffle and Kouki blinked as he caught a fleeting glance at the inky tattoo of a crescent moon on the inside of Kouki’s wrist.

The brunet’s finger tugged softly at Kouki’s nose which elicited a very unattractive sort of half honk from the ex-psychologist causing the deity to snicker. Ogiwara wiped his hand on the bedsheet and pulled the tray out, “You should probably eat something. It’s been nearly thirty hours.”

Kouki blinked, his head was hurting from crying for so long, “Thirty hours?” He frowned. His voice was scratchy and wet. He cleared his throat, “It’s still dark outside. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been out for that long either.”

Ogiwara nodded, “Yeah well, you’re currently on the moonward side of the temple so it doesn’t really get much lighter than this.”

Kouki accepted the tray, spreading the cheese over the cold bread, “Moonward side? What’s that supposed to mean?”

The brunet man leaned back in his chair, his tone light, almost airy, “Oh right, Tetsu didn’t tell you much of anything did he?”

Kouki watched as the unfairly relaxed man brought a few playing cards into existence, shuffling them idly as he continued speaking, “Well, this place is known as the Crimson Temple. It’s kinda like our lair, y’know?” He closed his eyes, smile widening, “The moonward side is mostly for Jiraenians among other things because the sunward side is uninhabitable to anyone who isn’t Gaian.”

The mousy brunet chomped into his toast and hummed, watching as Ogiwara began a game of solitaire, “Are you Jiraenean or Gaian?”

Ogiwara’s smile became a bit sharper, “Gaian, though I’m an honorary Jiraenean because of my domain.”

Kouki cracked a small smile at that. “’Honorary’, huh? What, are you the paper boy?”

Ogiwara’s short bark of laughter was rough, mirthful, nothing like Kouki had heard in a while. It was so genuine. “Hey, being the messenger has its perks! Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

Kouki snorted again and Ogiwara passed him the glass of water which he accepted with a small thank you. They fell into a comfortable silence as the bedridden brunet finished up his meal, the deity finishing his card game while humming a strange tune. A few minutes after Kouki had eaten the last bite of his bread, Ogiwara turned to face him, giving him a final once over before nodding, “You feeling better?”

The brunet blinked lazily, the words not quite registering in his mind. Ogiwara’s strange smile was back, not quite exasperated but not quite fond either and he clicked his tongue, “Are you feeling better? Think you can handle some social interaction?”

He nodded, “Yeah, thank you by the way. You didn’t have to do any of this.”

Ogiwara stood up and stretched before turning around to put the chair back in its place, “Actually I did. Satsuki would’ve killed me otherwise, but that’s beside the point.” He walked towards the cupboards (which, apparently, were actually closets) and pulled out a heavy winter’s coat throwing it in Kouki’s direction and opening the room door. “I’ll be waiting in the hallway. Place the tray on the table and put on the coat, I’ll tell you more on the way, okay?”

Kouki fumbled with the coat but managed to stop it from colliding with his face. His mind was still moving slowly, still fatigued from his small emotional breakdown but he dutifully fulfilled his instructions. Ogiwara was the only one who approached him with any kind of civility (barring Miss Momoi, but she was a _doctor_ ) so he was currently Kouki’s best chance of answers. The brunet got off of the bed and immediately had to support himself on the table since he was hit with an intense wave of vertigo. His legs felt like jelly, so he stretched himself out a bit and popped a few of the joints that had grown stiff from his extended nap then he grabbed the coat from off the bed, neatened the sheet and fastened the coat on.

He turned towards the door and took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

 

* * *

Ogiwara Shigehiro was currently very amused and very interested in the mortal that was currently occupying the young lord’s room.

He was certainly nothing like his self-assured if not slightly abrasive predecessor, that was for sure. Maybe it was the fact that he understood just how herculean this task was or perhaps it was his boldness in the face of such a trying adversity, but Shigehiro was impressed. He could understand why Tetsuya had chosen him.

A true lion’s heart, that one.

Now, how was he going to prevent Tatsuya from murdering him on the spot?

Satsuki had informed him that the Lord of Spring was already in their little slice of heaven. He was spending a bit of time in the Sky Garden before coming down like he usually did but he was surprisingly sans Atsushi which either meant that the Patron of Earth was helping Tetsuya and Ryouta or he had stopped for food. Whichever one it was, it wasn’t good because at this point, Shigehiro was very sure only his mate could stop the raven haired man from smiting Furihata as soon as he registered his mortal presence.

See, the issue was, Furihata needed to meet the Seasonal Deities before he met the Pantheon. Tatsuya was the first to get here and so, Furihata needed to meet him and get him to be neutrally receptive to the idea of _at least_ giving humanity an extension or something. Which wasn’t going to happen because Tatsuya utterly despised oathbreakers.

Yeah, turns out Satsuki forgot the part about there being a replacement ambassador in her letters.

Which meant that all the Seasons were going to preemptively hate Furihata’s adorable little guts.

It was honestly a little sad, Furihata was a pretty cool guy and Shigehiro wouldn’t mind seeing how his whole plan for reform would play out (if he even had a plan at this point but that’s beside the point). Granted, it would mean nothing if Tatsuya did indeed kill the poor brunet in Blood Moon Hall in about half an hour, but it was a nice thought.

Chihiro’s door opened and Shigehiro caught the sight of the white overcoat he had thrown the mortal’s way and he couldn’t help but smile. That particular coat was actually Daiki’s. He had left it in the closet the last time Chihiro had made the trip up with Kazunari so it was ridiculously big on the petite Furihata (also Shigehiro was very sure he would have to burn that coat afterwards because Daiki’s sense of smell was above insane and if he didn’t smell human on the coat then Taiga would smell human on _him_ and honestly, Shigehiro was far more afraid of Taiga than he was of Daiki) but it would serve its purpose well. The hallways of the Moonward Wing were incredibly cold in an effort to keep it comfortable after all.

Furihata’s face instantly screwed at the draughty air and he pulled the coat a little tighter around his body. He looked at Shigehiro like the cold hallways was his fault and the Messenger really had no response to that other than an amused shrug.

Shigehiro’s relaxed smile slowly became a terribly entertained half smirk as he watched as a flash of terror filled Furihata’s face as he realized that the hallways were very much pitch black without the aid of the light from Chihiro’s bedroom. Shigehiro could still see, of course, his eyes had long since grown accustomed to the darkness of the halls, but Furihata’s little yelp of frightened fascination had him huffing in amusement. He snapped his fingers and allowed a little ball of dim yellow light form in front of him, being very careful to keep from irritating the shades that were lurking in the darkest corners of the hallway. His smile quirked a bit to the right when Furihata immediately latched himself onto Shigehiro’s arm and refused to let go, even though his hands were already losing their temperature.

“Well,” Shigehiro began, his tenor voice serious even though he was nothing but tickled at the human on his arm, “Stay very close to me and try not to look too hard at the shadows, okay?”

Furihata glared up at him, brown eyes still red rimmed but just a vicious, “Oh, because there are supposed to be shadows in this, right?!”

His voice was bordering on hysterical and Shigehiro could feel his breaths already coming out in quick puffs. Oh, he was afraid of the dark. Well, he’d have to get over that very quickly if he was going to survive the hallway.

Shigehiro looked down at him and very calmly placed his hands on his cheeks, his own dark chocolate eyes staring very pointedly into his lighter eyes. “Listen to me, Furihata.” His eyes were frantically darting about the place and one of the more vindictive shades picked that moment to close the door, eradicating the only major source of light and causing Furihata to scream so loudly that Shigehiro was sure he’d have ringing in his ears until next week.

The brunet was on the verge of crying again and Shigehiro had the sense to not growl at the offending shade, but instead he fitted the smaller man under his chin and had to be satisfied with levelling a warning glare at the mischievous thing. He stood there with Furihata pressed right up to him, Daiki’s coat thick and soft, even though it was quivering along with the man who wore it. He allowed a small purr to rumble through his chest, just so the vibrations would help his brain to register safety, comfort even in this unappealing situation and he found himself ruffling the poor mortal’s hair once more. It seemed to have a calming effect on him once before, Shigehiro would give his left arm if it didn’t work again.

Eventually (it was like five minutes and a handful of seconds), Furihata had calmed down enough to stop shaking. He took a few more ticks to get a hold on his breathing and Shigehiro couldn’t help the smile that danced across his face as he lifted his head to try to meet his eyes. Shigehiro winked at him, purposefully bold, confidence inspired hope, and made it a point to keep his ball of light as close to Furihata as possible. He motioned to the darkness that surrounded them, “This is one of the darkest wings in the temple. Chihiro doesn’t like the light at all.”

Furihata’s eyes glimmered, desperate to distract himself from the all-encompassing inky blackness that was flanking him from seemingly all directions, “W-Who’s Chihiro?”

Shigehiro took one step forward and Furihata followed automatically. Good. “Chihiro’s the young lord. It’s his room you were occupying.”

The shorter man nodded absently, his hold on Shigehiro’s arm tightening, “He’s Jiraenean.”

If Shigehiro moved his other hand to cover the still trembling palm that was squeezing his elbow, well, no one but him knew. “He’s actually Tetsu’s son, believe it or not.”

Furihata’s snicker was soft, like the whisper of a wind that wasn’t quite there, “He was the child with silver hair, right?”

They were nearly a quarter of the way there, “Yeah. His pride and joy, that kid. I’d feel better if he weren’t so damn detached.”

This time Furihata actually laughed and Shigehiro felt like he needed to grab a glass jar and preserve that melodious sound for the rest of eternity, “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that about your superior’s child.”

He wasn’t even looking into the darkness anymore. His eyes were fully on Shigehiro and the Messenger found himself hard pressed to look away, even with the bit of heat that was prickling down his spine from that comment, “Yeah well, he’s a strange kid. Almost as strange as his father.”

Furihata snickered again and Shigehiro thought, his smile tugging at his lips, that he was probably royally, colossally screwed.

But hey, they had reached almost halfway to the door and Furihata still hadn’t let go of his hand, so that was something.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh, guess what? ShigeFuri is the couple I decided to go with, just because they work so well together. Like, Shigehiro is the butt-kicking wingman extraordinaire whilst Furihata is the friend you go to when you want actual advice.   
> It’ll be nice to write them.
> 
> Tune in next time for Tatsuya and don’t forget to leave those dank comments screaming about how long it’s been since I updated ehehe.
> 
> -Haru


End file.
